Affliction
by Miss Kagura
Summary: After Rin falls ill with an 'incurable' disease, Sesshoumaru finds himself cooperating with the only person that understands what 'leukemia' is.
1. Ryujin's Curse

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**Affliction**  
_By Miss Kagura  
_Chapter One – Ryujin's Curse

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Sesshoumaru listened to the rain battering the forest as he drew nearer to his group, trying to ascertain the source of his restlessness. After being separated from Jaken and Rin for the better part of two weeks, he had awoken to an odd, almost sad feeling. Anyone else might have dismissed it, but after traveling with his companions for so long, and knowing how incompetent Jaken was at times, he felt obligated to check in on them before returning to his hunt for Naraku. 

Five seconds later, Sesshoumaru forgot who this 'Naraku' was; his stomach turned and he felt a combination of utter rage and genuine concern when he laid eyes on Rin, who lay cradled between Ah-Un's two heads, which kept her dry in the storm. She was feverish, had quite obviously lost weight, and was covered in dark, ugly bruises.

"Jaken!" Sesshoumaru shouted, waking the little youkai from his slumber. With one elegant finger pointed toward the girl, he growled at Jaken. "Explain."

The little kappa glanced over at Rin, then back at his lord, who he had never seen in such an odd mood. Sesshoumaru looked more than ready to kill him, so Jaken carefully chose his words. "Rin has become very ill, my Lord. We took her to a human healer, and it seems she is suffering from an incurable disease called Ryujin's Curse."

Sesshoumaru had heard the name of this particular illness before, as it supposedly only struck humans who spent great amounts of time around youkai. Most youkai believed it to be a myth made up by superstitious humans to keep youkai and human friendships and alliances from forming. Other than that, he knew little else about the disease other than the fact that it _always_ killed those it struck, no exceptions.

"What have you done to treat her condition?" Sesshoumaru asked.

Jaken tripped and fell as he ran over to a bag filled with herbs. "I've taken the best care of her possible, my Lord! I've been very busy learning the locations of the best healers in all of Japan." He handed Sesshoumaru a piece of rice paper, masking an expression Sesshoumaru had never seen on the imp before. "Do you know what the monks said causes this disease?"

"Yes." Sesshoumaru replied unable to believe Jaken was expressing such interest and drive in helping Rin. Previously, Jaken had only treated her as an annoyance, and asked repeatedly for Sesshoumaru to leave her in a human village. Now, confronted with her illness, Jaken seemed to sing an entirely different tune.

Jaken scrambled after Sesshoumaru as he approached Rin. "Do you believe she got this horrid illness from us?" Sesshoumaru put Rin on Ah-Un's back and Jaken squawked. "Not like that, Lord Sesshoumaru! Look!" Jaken pointed out bruises where Rin had lay on the hard saddle.

The three youkai in the forest, including the two-headed dragon, found it hard to believe that such a delicate creature had become even more fragile. Jaken struggled against his own thoughts that it was extremely unfair that Rin had such an affliction in the first place. In the world of youkai, sickness was rare, and most physical pain was caused by fighting. Rin was not a fighter, not a bad person, and most definitely not someone who deserved such a terrible ailment.

Sesshoumaru picked Rin up from the saddle and did nothing as she went limp and rested her head on his shoulder. The slightest hints of death were already starting to taint her scent, a sign he didn't have long to find out if she really had this 'incurable' disease and how one cures the incurable. He didn't care how many other humans died from this disease, as long as Rin wasn't among them.

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One week later, Sesshoumaru had but one healer left on the list compiled by Jaken. The others had all been given a swift trip to the afterlife, either incapable or unwilling to treat Rin and her 'deserved' sickness. His apathy toward most humans had grown into genuine hate at how merciless they were when it came to the sick child. Even he, the coldest, most terrible taiyoukai in all of Japan, had kindness in his heart for her. 

Meanwhile, Rin's condition got much, much worse. She was barely conscious a few minutes a day, and hadn't eaten in two days. It was becoming fairly obvious that the disease was based in her blood, which refused to coagulate as it should have, leading to some of the bruises that marred her pale skin.

Sesshoumaru approached the village of one named 'Kaede,' and noticed immediately that the entire area reeked of his brother. There was even a sign in the woods that named them 'Inuyasha's Forest,' something that baffled Sesshoumaru, who could think of no reason humans would name a forest after his brother. He thankfully didn't sense Inuyasha anywhere, as the last thing he wanted was a confrontation with him. Having Inuyasha see him with a sick girl cradled in between his arm and right side would probably result in insults and vulgarity, two things Sesshoumaru already had very limited tolerance for.

Sesshoumaru sensed the miko and entered the hut, where he found an old woman sitting over a pot. The stench of Inuyasha was heavy enough in her hut it was fairly obvious that Inuyasha probably used this as his 'home.' A familiar bitterness tainted his tongue as he thought about his brother, who apparently preferred sleeping in a hut to sleeping in the nearby forest, as a full-blooded youkai would. "Are you blind, woman?" Sesshoumaru asked when the woman refused to acknowledge him.

Kaede stirred the pot. "Only in one eye, Sesshoumaru."

"You know who I am?" Sesshoumaru cautiously asked, unsure of whether or not he could trust the suspicious woman with Rin. "How?"

Kaede stood and motioned for him to lay Rin on a mat. Only minutes before, Shippou had screamed Sesshoumaru's name and ran away like there was no tomorrow. The only thing that persuaded her not to prepare to battle the taiyoukai was the fact that someone like Sesshoumaru would never waste his time killing an old miko or terrorizing a poor village. As she observed Rin's condition, she shook her head. She had seen the symptoms before. It was an incurable ill, and, she realized, the missing piece in the puzzle of the recently murdered healers.

Kagome entered the hut with her newly filled yellow backpack slung over her shoulder. "Where's Inuyasha?" She growled. "He came to my school today and threatened to beat up a guy just for giving me a gift and asking me to go out with him. I sat him through a street and into the sewer system. He seemed pretty upset." She hadn't noticed Rin's bruises yet, or the fact it was Rin on the mat. What she suddenly did notice was the fact that there was _something _standing behind her and it whatever it was made her skin crawl.

Slowly, and carefully, Kagome turned and made eye contact with Sesshoumaru, who was far too close for comfort. The last time she had been this close to him, he had drenched her in poison. Her mind registered the sick child with the taiyoukai and she knelt next to Rin, gasping as she lifted up one of her arms. "Was Rin attacked?"

Kaede shook her head. "No, it is a disease known as Ryujin's Curse. It is a fatal disease caused by—"

"Choose your words _carefully_." Sesshoumaru warned.

Kaede ignored his warning. "As I was saying…it is a disease that many believe is caused by keeping company with youkai. Myouga once told me it was the same disease that claimed the life of Inuyasha's mother."

Kagome had seen symptoms identical to Rin's once before. With one cautious hand, she pushed Rin's lips back, exposing a mouthful of bloody gums. She knew this disease; it had a name, one that no one in Feudal Japan would know. Of course they blamed youkai…the science required to understand so many illnesses didn't exist and wouldn't for centuries.

"Leukemia."

When the word rolled off her tongue, Sesshoumaru felt something in him cringe. Even the word, which he had never heard before, seemed poisonous and deadly. "Leukemia?" Yet, he felt relief, hearing it referred to as something other than a punishment for Rin's time with him.

The weight of an impending decision suddenly started to tug on Kagome's heart. Rin was going to die in Feudal Japan, and there was no disputing this fact. Leukemia was a vicious disease even in her time, but with no treatment, no doctors, and no hospitals, Rin had no hope. But what exactly would Kagome do? Rin probably couldn't pass through the well, and even if she did, the idea of Sesshoumaru knowing her secret terrified her. On top of that, there was no way her family could afford to treat an uninsured child for cancer.

Sesshoumaru watched Kagome's expression darken, but was quickly distracted by a very intense and very terrible smell approaching. Inuyasha stumbled into the hut, reeking of the contents of a Tokyo sewer, causing his brother and everyone else to shudder and pinch their noses. Even Rin moaned and covered her face.

"Kami, Inuyasha. Go take a bath!" Kagome said.

Inuyasha flopped down on the floor. "I already did. You 'sat' me into my bath. I'll bathe again in…three days." He looked up at his brother. "What the fuck are you doing here, Sesshoumaru?"

Sesshoumaru's eyes bugged out as he spoke with his pinched nose. His voice sounded strange and slightly nasal. "Bath. Now." His brother smelled like he'd been rolled in rotting meat, had been urinated on, and…he wasn't sure what else, but it was bad.

Inuyasha leapt to his feet and reached for Tessaiga, but abruptly dropped it and let it hit the floor with a _clang_ as something familiar managed to get past his own stench and invade his nose. He knelt down and sniffed Rin, his face becoming uncharacteristically solemn and dark, and then picked up the sword and walked out of the hut without saying a word. "Inuyasha?" Kagome called out, following him out as he walked toward the pond to bathe. She couldn't seem to remember a time when Inuyasha capitulated to a request so quickly, especially when he was fuming from a 'sitting.' "Is something wrong?"

"First you 'sit' me through the street and into that river of shit and now you want to watch me bathe?" Inuyasha spat, refusing to turn and even look at her as she blushed and scurried back into the hut. He wanted her to believe he was still mad at her, which he normally would have been, but after smelling Rin, and realizing what would be happening to her, Inuyasha didn't really feel like he could be angry at Kagome for something so insignificant. It wasn't even that he liked Rin; Inuyasha knew her only as the peculiar little girl who followed his brother for reasons unknown even to Sesshoumaru.

When his mother died from the very same disease Rin smelled of, she looked terrible. Inuyasha had watched as Izayoi spiraled from indescribable beauty into a pale sack of bruised bones. Watching his mother die at such a young age had been hard enough, but watching her die _like that_ had been frustrating and painful. It had come at a time that Inuyasha was just getting old enough to defend against the countless attacks on his hanyou blood. When his life should have been getting easier, everything suddenly got so much worse.

Inuyasha dove into the cool water, hoping the water would wash away the memories he didn't want to see again.

No one would take care of Izayoi. They said she had justly been stricken with the disease for bedding a demon, and giving birth to the monster that was Inuyasha. Izayoi's father, his maternal grandfather, had blamed Inuyasha for her death, and told him as much. He told Inuyasha how his daughter used to be a beautiful, vibrant little girl, how she was a hime, and how much she deserved better than to be mother to a hanyou boy that would be better off dead.

Inuyasha had believed that the myths about the disease were a lie, but the fact that Rin had somehow gotten it certainly made him think more about the issue. Was being around youkai dangerous for humans? He had never smelled that disease on anyone before, only his mother and Rin, two humans who spent time with youkai. Yet, Kagome, Sango, and Miroku all seemed to be just fine, despite the fact that two demons and hanyou traveled with them. Were they in danger too?

Back in the hut, Kagome helped Kaede brew some herbs and dug through the bag for a can of juice. Sesshoumaru watched from the corner of the hut, his concentration fixed on the younger miko, who seemed to know a lot more than she said. If Kagome had been anyone else, he simply would have dragged her outside and tortured her until she spoke, but her status as Inuyasha's bitch made the issue somewhat more complicated. On top of that, whatever held her tongue seemed to be something that worried her deeply. He could practically follow her thoughts as she wondered what she would do if Shippou was struck with such an illness, calculating the unrevealed costs of helping Sesshoumaru against the chance of helping Rin.

Kagome's assessment of the situation involved her looking at Rin as an innocent little girl though, as she would have looked at any girl who fit the description. Sesshoumaru could only look through his own eyes, even if he understood Kagome's unspoken reasoning. He did not care about 'innocent little girls;' through his eyes, he only saw Rin.

The only person who truly cared about Sesshoumaru was Rin.  
The only person who truly cared about Rin was Sesshoumaru.

The incident involving the Meidou had been proof of this fact. Seeing Rin die again had made him think the strangest thoughts, and one cannot simply unthink those things and pretend they never entered his mind. Sesshoumaru would have taken her place in Hell if he thought it would have saved her, and he had never had thoughts of that nature about anyone. Those thoughts were a weakness. Those thoughts might kill him someday. Sesshoumaru knew that if he was only concerned with personal strength, he'd leave Rin in a human village and continue on his journey without her…or was she the thing that could make him strong? He didn't know anymore, but he hadn't failed to notice his body had no problem performing well above what he believed it capable of when Rin was in danger.

Kagome looked up at Sesshoumaru, as if asking questions without saying a word. She looked down again with a tight frown and put a pair of socks on Rin. "How long has it been since she has eaten?" Kagome asked.

"Two days." Sesshoumaru replied, his voice as bored and emotionless as ever.

She reached for the can and opened it, raising it to Rin's lips. "Rin? Will you drink this please?"

Rin barely opened her eyes and nodded as Kagome lifted the rim of the can to her lips. "Good, good." After a few sips, Rin turned her head away, as if she'd had enough. She put a blanket around Rin and propped her head up on a pillow before fixing her stare back on Sesshoumaru.

Kaede watched the strange exchange of glances between the two and noted how like his brother Sesshoumaru was. Stubborn, aloof, and unwilling to admit he was bothered by Rin's sickness, he was behaving as if he was simply taking care of something that belonged to him. Still, his eyes almost burned with the same unspoken affection Inuyasha had when he watched Kagome. She wondered if Rin was simply Sesshoumaru's 'Kagome,' someone for him to protect in exchange for unwavering love.

Kagome seemed to become more acutely aware of Inuyasha's absence and left the hut, only to find him at the edge of the village, sitting in a tree. He seemed thoughtful, an expression that seemed somewhat out of place on her hanyou. "Inuyasha, what are you doing up there?" She asked.

"I don't know how you can stand to be in that hut. It reeks of death." Inuyasha said, but the tone of his voice a foreign mixture of rudeness and melancholy. A bird chirped on a branch above Inuyasha, who absentmindedly stared at it. "Why should you have to help that stupid kid anyway?" Brief images of watching his mother vomiting blood flashed through his head as he thought about the tiny girl sleeping in Kaede's hut.

Kagome frowned; she was shocked Inuyasha could be such a jerk even when small child was so sick. "Inuyasha, sit!" Inuyasha found himself watching her walk away as he rubbed dirt off his face.

While Kagome and Kikyou tended to focus on what made them different from one another, Inuyasha all too often realized that there were more things that made them alike than either of them would ever notice. When she had been alive, Kikyou never failed to have a small group of children under her care. Even if he would never admit it, it had been something that attracted him to her. Seeing her care for children caused the strangest, but strongest reactions in him. Sometimes, long before Goshinboku, Naraku, and all the other things that tore them apart, he would watch her play and care for children and daydream about what it would be like if those were their pups.

However, it was Kikyou's concern and care for sick and injured people that made her so cold. She had to steel her soul to become emotionally capable of comforting those who were facing death. Inuyasha did not want Kagome to walk down that road. It would either break her or turn her into stone.

Inuyasha wanted his brother to take his dying brat and go as far away as possible.

A few minutes later, Sesshoumaru emerged from Kaede's hut and found Kagome sitting on the steps just outside, lost in thought, exuding waves of fear and anxiety. She didn't even look at him, and just stared forward, resting her chin in her hands. "I have this secret, and if the wrong person finds out about it, I don't even know how severe the consequences would be." She craned her neck to look at him. "You are the wrong person, Sesshoumaru."

"…But…" Kagome added after a moment. "I know more about the disease Rin has than anyone in the world right now, and I understand that unless I do something, she'll die. I don't think I can bear that burden on my conscience." She finally shifted and met his blistering gaze. "If she does die, can't you use Tenseiga on her?"

Sesshoumaru briefly looked down at the hilt of his Tenseiga. "It can only be used on a person once, and Rin has been resurrected before." He stated. He was relieved when Kagome didn't ask about when he had saved her before, as he considered that to be a rather private experience.

"If I were to help you, I would need things from you, too. For one thing, I'd need some insurance that you wouldn't do anything harmful or evil." Kagome said, almost laughing at his incredulous stare. He looked at her as if he, Sesshoumaru, would never do anything terrible. She rolled her eyes and continued. "I would also need some way to pay for Rin's treatment. Treating leukemia is very, very expensive and I can't burden my family like that."

Sesshoumaru was quiet for a moment, and then made a slight grunting noise. "The second demand is no problem for this Sesshoumaru, but I am unsure as to what you're implying with the first condition."

"Have you ever seen Inuyasha's necklace?" Kagome asked.

His amber eyes widened. "You will not subjugate this Sesshoumaru."

Kagome stood up and walked back toward the hut. "Is your pride really worth more than her life?"

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**Please Review!**

**Next Chapter: Comfort  
**_Faced with Rin's impending death, Kagome reveals her secret to Sesshoumaru and attempts to get Rin through the Bone-Eater's Well. She also learns there may be some truth behind the myth of Ryujin's Curse._

Author's Note: I might not update this one for awhile. I need to finish chapters for several of my other stories.


	2. Comfort

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**Affliction**  
_By Miss Kagura  
_Chapter Two – Comfort

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Sesshoumaru didn't dare move a muscle as two priestesses chanted on their knees, sweating. Their first attempt to bind him with Beads of Subjugation not only failed, but resulted in a minor explosion that purified some of the skin on his neck. Unsurprisingly, it took a lot more spiritual power than Kaede alone had to put him under such a spell. Stolen glances to the sleeping girl in the corner were the only thing that kept him from killing the women and fleeing. 

In exchange for becoming privy to whatever secrets might save Rin, Kagome had asked him to wear Beads of Subjugation as assurance he wouldn't abuse the knowledge. Sesshoumaru suspected that Kagome didn't truly understand what she was asking of him. The entire concept was disgusting, wrong, and contrary to every instinct he had. He was almost untouchable, injured only due to error, joining fights at his leisure. With these beads, however, he would be an easy target for the miko, who could simply subjugate and kill him.

As Sesshoumaru watched the women strain to curse him, he wondered if they realized they were putting Kagome into significant danger as well. How wise was it to place oneself in the position of being the only person capable of controlling a loathed, powerful taiyoukai?

The beads initially stung on his neck as they started to appear in a ring. Still, they chanted, until Kaede looked to Kagome. "The word."

Kagome seemed to stir from her meditations, realizing she hadn't really thought about what word she would use. "Uhh…" It had to be a word she wouldn't accidentally say, but not one that would insult him. "Heel."

_Wham!_

Sesshoumaru heard his brother laughing at him, but one syllable later, he too joined Sesshoumaru on the floor. What would his father say if he could see his sons? Who was he kidding? He already knew the answer to that question. His father would laugh, and then impregnate Kagome. With a bitter sigh, he stood up and looked expectantly at Kagome, who left the hut. He waited a few minutes, then picked up Rin and followed Kagome out, careful not to draw his brother's attention.

As far as Inuyasha was concerned, Kagome was sending Sesshoumaru away before the sun set, helping him keep his secret; it was to be a new moon, which meant he would become a human. He didn't know about Kagome's intention to try and get Rin through the well, and if he had, he'd be upset. This way, Kaede could explain and Sango and Miroku could restrain him until his temper cooled down.

Sesshoumaru quickly caught up to Kagome as she walked along an overgrown path into Inuyasha's Forest. "Where are we going?" He asked.

"To my home, which happens to be a shrine built near the Bone-Eater's Well." Kagome replied.

He thought for a moment about the well. "I saw no shrine there when I passed by it earlier."

"Not _now_, there isn't." Kagome said. "But I'm not from 'now.' I'm from the future."

Sesshoumaru wouldn't have believed it if Kagome hadn't gone through so much trouble to protect this secret of hers. Knowing the future was a potentially dangerous form of knowledge and in her place, he probably would have kept his silence. As they neared the well, Kagome seemed to become more nervous, chattering mindlessly about falling in the well.

They entered the clearing and Kagome walked to the edge of the well. "I have a few ideas on how we're going to get this to work. My first one is that you try to jump with Rin when the well's magic starts working to take me home."

Peering cautiously over the edge, Sesshoumaru thought about what strange mechanics turned a well into a door. "How will I know?"

Kagome slipped the other strap of her backpack around her arm and stood on the wooden ledge. "There will be a lot of blue light. Plus, I'll disappear. Ready?"

Sesshoumaru didn't answer her, so Kagome jumped, making another passage through the well. When arrived on the other side alone, she frowned, climbed halfway out, then dropped back down again, ending up in the bottom of the Feudal side of the well. Sesshoumaru was less than a foot from her, looking a little miffed. "Okay, that didn't work."

"Obviously." He replied.

Never one to become discouraged or give up, even under the scrutinizing stare of a taiyoukai, Kagome climbed out of the well. "My next idea is that Rin, you, and I touch each other when we try to pass." Kagome could see the disgust at the idea that he should have to touch her, but he voiced no complaints. His eyes watched as she moved behind him and put her hands on his shoulders. At first, he was slightly frightened she was about to jump on his back, but her feet remained on the ground. "Ready!"

Sesshoumaru stepped over the edge of the well, and blue light suddenly enveloped them, allowing him and Rin to pass with Kagome into the future, which stunk of humans and strange substances he was unaccustomed to. He leapt easily out of the well, and then walked up the steps that lead down to the well.

Concrete, bricks, and buildings stood where he knew a forest had been. From the shrine's position on a hill, Sesshoumaru had a fairly good view of the urban sprawl that made up Tokyo, the likes of which he had never even imagined. Sesshoumaru could feel the electricity that coursed through the city's power lines, see the tall buildings, smell the pollution, and realized that while he knew everything about the world on his side of the well, he knew nothing about this strange place.

"Come on." Kagome said. "This is where I live with my family. It goes without saying that I expect you to be nice to them, and not do anything violent."

"Family?" Sesshoumaru asked. He had expected her to live alone, not with a family. He wondered why someone would leave their family to go on adventures with his moronic brother, but decided he'd think about such things at another time.

Kagome pulled a sliding glass door open. "Hey Mama!"

Mrs. Higurashi, who was almost finished cooking dinner, smiled at her daughter. "Back already?" She watched as a tall, obviously non-human man walked in behind her, holding a girl in his arm. "With friends, no less!" Her eyes fell to Rin, and her expression changed immediately.

In her deliberations concerning bringing Rin to her time, Kagome hadn't considered that her mother would go into 'Supermom' mode around Rin. In an instant, Keiko Higurashi took control of the situation. "Souta, you go run a warm bubble bath. Kagome, go through the storage closet and find some of your old clothes. Gramps, finish dinner. And you…" Sesshoumaru raised his eyebrows, unsure of what task the woman was about to delegate to him. "You look absolutely exhausted."

Then, it hit Sesshoumaru. He was tired.

Sesshoumaru hadn't slept all week and didn't notice until it was pointed out to him. Had he eaten anything? The fact that he was capable of forgetting to meet his most essential physical needs perplexed Sesshoumaru, as taking care of oneself tends to be an immediate priority for most people. He had always been his own most important concern; how had Rin so easily changed that without his noticing?

"I am above such mortal weaknesses." Sesshoumaru replied.

More than used to the stubbornness of Inuyasha, Keiko just smiled warmly. "Of course you are. I'll set up the guest room." She said. "Oh, I almost forgot my manners. I'm Keiko, Kagome's mother, that's my father, and my youngest, Souta."

Kagome stepped in between her mother and Sesshoumaru, knowing Sesshoumaru probably hated talking to her. "Sesshoumaru, and Rin."

"Your daughter?" Keiko asked Sesshoumaru.

Sesshoumaru frowned. "No."

Keiko smiled again. "Of course not." If looks weren't enough to make the connection, behavior was. Whoever Sesshoumaru was, he was obviously related to Inuyasha.

The Higurashi family split up from the table as everyone went to complete their tasks. Sesshoumaru followed Kagome to the closet. She reached for a plastic box, ignoring the taiyoukai staring holes into her back as she opened it and took some of the clothes out. With a grin, she held up a nightgown, letting it unfold as she shook it. It was yellow, with a pink floral print on it. "Cute, huh?"

Sesshoumaru maintained a cross expression, inwardly musing over the fact it seemed perfect for Rin. Did that mean that at some point, Kagome had been like Rin? "How long ago did you wear this?" He asked.

Kagome held it up over her womanly frame. "Let's see…I'm seventeen now, and I was about seven or eight then. So about ten years. Worried it's not in style or something?" She asked, a little confused by the question. Sesshoumaru had made it fairly clear he had no interest in conversation or in the lives of others.

Sesshoumaru grunted at the question and followed Kagome down the hall to a room covered in the color pink. Her mother was making the bed with a fresh set of sheets, and looked up to smile at Sesshoumaru, who still had Rin tucked close to his side. Ten years ago, Kagome had been Rin, he realized. Did that mean that in a decade's time, Rin would become Kagome, who would have become her mother by then? Never before had he thought of it as a cycle, but it had a natural rhythm to it like many other things in life. Child. Woman. Mother.

Kagome's mother, Keiko Higurashi, approached Sesshoumaru with her arms out. "I'll give her a bath and we'll see if we can get some food in her."

"Rin will not eat." Sesshoumaru said. He allowed the woman to take Rin, but gave her a threatening glare. Mrs. Higurashi just smiled and left with Rin in her arms.

Kagome sat on the edge of her bed and stared at Sesshoumaru, who did look extremely tired. "I guess I'll sleep with my mom and Rin can stay in here tonight…you can sleep in the guest room. We'll take her to a doctor in the morning."

The taiyoukai sat next to her legs on the floor and leaned on the bed. Kagome felt the familiar feeling of his aura on her skin and yawned. "What makes your aura do that to the air? None of the other youkai I've met can do that."

"Why do you care?" Sesshoumaru snapped.

"Just curious. Geeze." Kagome said.

Kagome stood up and was about to leave him alone when Sesshoumaru's voice stopped her. "My aura is charged with energy. Usually, it is harmless, but I can control it and use it as a weapon."

"Kami…" Kagome said, backing up against the door. She really hadn't thought of it before; all the mysterious things in Feudal Japan had magical properties. She didn't expect them to have any real scientific explanation. "Can you completely control it?"

"Yes. I can turn it off completely if I feel so compelled." Sesshoumaru replied. "Why?"

Kagome went to her desk and picked up her science textbook, flipping through the pages to the chapter that described radiation. "I think your aura may be radioactive." Kagome said. "Radiation is extremely dangerous to humans, and can cause all sorts of terrible diseases, including leukemia."

Sesshoumaru took the book and looked at it for a moment, then pointed a finger at the section marked 'Gamma Rays.' "This sounds similar to my capabilities." He said, reading on to something about 'atomic bombs,' 'cell reproduction,' and one of the few terms he had heard before – leukemia.

A pronounced frown formed on his lips as Sesshoumaru realized that he was probably responsible for Rin's illness. "Ungai." Sesshoumaru said.

"Huh?" Kagome asked. "That old monk? What does he have to do with this?"

Two weeks before, Inuyasha and his company had stumbled on a village whose children had all been kidnapped. They offered to help find the missing kids, but the village headmen had already enlisted a monk named Master Ungai. Somehow, Rin had become tangled up in the mess and Sesshoumaru rescued her without killing any of the monks.

"I flared out my aura at him, and Rin was right there with him. Then, I left for two weeks and came back to find her ill." Sesshoumaru said.

Kagome remembered the night well, because she and the others were standing in the woods, watching, hoping Sesshoumaru wouldn't kill Master Ungai and the other monks that traveled with him. The brilliant flash of light that incapacitated them had left Kagome feeling relieved at the time, happy Sesshoumaru hadn't massacred them all. "If your aura is that dangerous, Ungai, those monks, and all those children might be sick too."

Sesshoumaru thought for a moment, and then realized he honestly didn't care about any of that, even the other children that could be sick. It was of no consequence to him whether they or not they died regardless of the fact his actions might be the cause.

"You don't care, do you?" Kagome asked.

"No." Sesshoumaru replied. "Other than tracking them down, is there a way to verify this theory?"

Kagome scratched her chin, and then nodded. "We can order a radiation detector off the internet, which is…never mind. I'll explain tomorrow or something. Until then, can you control it?" The resulting glare caused her to amend her statement. "Of course you can. You're Sesshoumaru."

The door opened again and Kagome's mother entered with a clean, conscious Rin balanced on her hip. "Kagome, bring a tray and some dinner, please."

Rin weakly smiled at Sesshoumaru, but seemed strangely relaxed in the woman's arms. "Sesshoumaru-sama…there were so many bubbles." She said, speaking of the strange, but slightly fun experience of her first bubble bath. The warm water smelled like flowers, and felt so good on her skin. Rin didn't know who the woman was, but there was something about her that reminded her of her own mother.

Sesshoumaru never coddled Rin and she knew better than to expect it from him. He was her protector, not her comforter. She felt a twinge of guilt at enjoy the woman's attention so much, especially in his presence, but Rin felt so sick and weak. She didn't want to think about how she would keep up with Sesshoumaru and still be able to find her own food in this state. What if he left her behind with a human family?

Rin looked up at the woman, the girl, and the little boy watching from the hallway. This _was_ a human family, and her Lord Sesshoumaru had been the one to bring her to them. She let out a light scream and jerked out of Keiko's arms, landing on the floor with a painful _thud._

"Lord Sesshoumaru, please don't leave Rin!" Rin cried. "I'll keep up, I won't slow you down, I promise! I'll still find my own food and I'll take better care of Ah-Un!"

"Stop that right this instant, Rin. You're making a racket." Sesshoumaru said. His voice was completely even and lacked even a hint of compassion.

Rin crawled forward and hugged his knees. "Please! Rin won't interrupt your hunt! You can still hunt Naraku with Rin!"

"Rin, you are sick. Look at all your bruises." Sesshoumaru said.

She hid her arms and hands in the sleeves of the nightgown. "Please forgive Rin for being ugly." When she started to sob, Sesshoumaru ground his teeth together in frustration.

Just as Kagome returned with the food and tray, blood started to gush from Rin's nose. It wasn't a standard child's nose bleed, either. The volume of blood scared both the child and everyone else in the room. It poured from in between her fingers as she cupped her nose, unable to stop crying. Rin was sick, weak, everything hurt, and she thought she was losing the only person who had shown any care for her since her parents died.

Sesshoumaru snatched a towel Souta took from the bathroom and knelt in front of Rin. "Rin, that is enough." She didn't respond to his order the way she normally would, and he realized he was going to have to give her some reassurance that he wasn't going to abandon her. "Leave us alone." He barked.

Kagome leaned the tray against her dresser and left the food and a bottle of water on top of it.

There were several problems with the Rin-Sesshoumaru relationship, most of which were painfully obvious. First, Sesshoumaru did not like being emotional or affectionate; he viewed both of these things as weakness and hated when Rin's presence brought him such feelings. Second, he had no inherent desire to comfort her. It wasn't built into his personality, and he had never been nursed or indulged in such a fashion as a child. Third, and most importantly, Sesshoumaru had no clue as to what he was supposed to do even in cases when such actions were necessary.

Sesshoumaru carefully pried Rin's hands off her nose and replaced them with the towel. "Rin, you need to stop this nonsense right this instant. I have said _repeatedly_ that when you leave my care is your choice and your choice alone."

"Promise!" Sesshoumaru heard Rin say, her voice muffled by the towel. Sesshoumaru didn't give in to her request, and a few minutes later, her nose finally stopped bleeding.

He glanced to the food. "Will you try to eat?"

Rin nodded, and seconds later, Sesshoumaru's sharp hearing picked up on the sound of her knees buckling. One hand caught her and he put her on the bed, and then pulled the covers over her. After he set up the tray over her lap and placed the food on it, he watched as Rin's shaky hands attempted to manipulate the chopsticks. When she finally managed to grab some rice, it fell back onto the tray, making a mess and more frustration. Rin finally put the chopsticks down and reached for the bottle of water, which she knocked off the tray.

The bottle landed in Sesshoumaru's hand without spilling. "Rin is sorry. Lord Sesshoumaru." Rin said, hanging her head.

Sesshoumaru sat on the edge of the bed and gently lifted the bottle to her mouth. Rin took a few sips and raised her hand. He put the bottle back down on the tray and picked up the chopsticks. He swung them around for a moment, totally unaware of how to use the human eating utensils. Rin never used them when they traveled, but then again, she lived mostly on fish and other things she could eat with her hands. Just when Sesshoumaru thought he had mastered the strange little sticks, he looked up at Rin, who was giving him the first real smile he'd seen on her since he found out she was ill.

At his own expense, Sesshoumaru pretended to be incapable of using them for a few more minutes, prolonging the wide smile plastered on Rin's face. Only when it started to fade did he pick up some rice and offer it to her. She opened her mouth and he slipped the chopsticks in between her lips, dropping the rice on her tongue.

They continued like this until Rin had eaten as much as she could handle in her condition. When she was done, he noticed something a little different in her expression as she regarded him. Appreciation? Adoration? He put the tray back on the dresser and decided to let Rin rest.

Sesshoumaru eventually figured out that he could stop the light in the room by unscrewing the light bulbs, which he did, noting how inefficient such an act was. He sat down next to the bed and leaned his head back, letting it rest on the mattress as he gave in to the exhaustion he had somehow avoided for an entire week.

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**Please Review!**

**Next Chapter: Needles  
**_The next morning, Kagome accompanies Sesshoumaru and Rin to a doctor's office, who has to do quite a few unpleasant tests before diagnosing Rin, who is admitted to a children's hospital._

_Special thanks to my Chapter One reviewers:_ Shiori The Lady Kazekage, Kagome Lady of Darkness, Solaira, Ru-Doragon, Azumi Kiribashi, supersillee06, Sesshoumaru's Love 1991, Elvin BlueEyes, MysticWolf71891, WhiteWolfChickie, and amberwolves!


	3. Needles

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**Affliction  
**_By Miss Kagura  
_Chapter Three – Needles

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The next morning came and the Higurashi house came to life, a strange panic taking over as Souta tried to finish a project, Inuyasha came to voice his dissent, and Kagome tried to get everyone ready for the trip to the 'doctor.' 

"Kagome, what the hell were you thinking bringing him here?" Inuyasha yelled at the bathroom door.

"Enough!" Kagome hissed through toothpaste dripping out of her mouth. "You need to calm down, Inuyasha." She said, spitting into the sink and rinsing her mouth out.

When the door opened, Inuyasha found himself face-to-face with Kagome, who was wearing different clothing than he was used to. Bare feet in sandals gave him a full view of her legs as they emerged from her blue skirt. For a split second, he found himself breathless. Of course, when he finally did breath again, he did so only to make an ass of himself. "Who are you trying to impress?"

Kagome sighed and wished his strange acknowledgement of her body had come in the form of a compliment. '_You. I am trying to impress you.'_ Her eyes said to him, although she knew he wasn't always skilled at reading her emotions. So, because Inuyasha was unable to admit how beautiful he thought she looked, and she was unable to admit she wanted him to notice, they resumed their normal routine. He insulted Kagome, and she punished him for it. "Sit."

Down the hall, in the bathroom attached to Mrs. Higurashi's room, a naked Sesshoumaru eyed a pile of clothes curiously. The shoes presented the biggest problem, really, he decided, staring down at long, clawed toes. His boots were made out of youkai flesh, and were naturally resilient to being shredded, but regular leather was no match for claws that could slice through iron.

Bathing in the modern era was a great improvement over taking a dip in some lake in Feudal Japan. The hair conditioner had his hair feeling as soft as a newborn pup's, there were no youkai in the water, no little fish tried to nip at his skin, and he smelled like something called 'vanilla,' which was an exotically pleasant scent.

Sesshoumaru ignored the problem of his feet for the time being and picked up the boxers with a deep frown. Why did Keiko Higurashi have men's clothing lying around? Maybe she was more than a typical housewife? He stepped into the boxers and pulled them up. They were considerably more pleasant than a fundoshi, and about a thousand times easier to put on and remove.

The rest of his clothing, a pair of pants, an undershirt, and a button-down shirt, went on without incident. The buttons proved slightly annoying with only one arm, but Sesshoumaru managed easily enough. He cut the claws on his hands and feet with Tokijin and slipped the leather shoes on. Finally, he looked in the mirror and concentrated for a moment, altering his youkai's humanoid form. His ears rounded on the tips and he twitched them. "Disgusting." He said to himself as he left the bathroom.

There he was, Sesshoumaru, Lord of the West, disguising himself to better blend in with humans to take advantage of their medicine. He pulled at his necklace and growled in frustration, but felt his anger slip away when he saw Rin. Just looking at her was enough to remind him of why such things were necessary.

Sesshoumaru passed his brother, who was on the floor cursing under his breath at Kagome. He had no desire whatsoever to become involved in whatever problems Inuyasha was having with his bitch, but found her ability to subjugate the hanyou extremely amusing.

"Inuyasha." Sesshoumaru said, putting his foot down on Inuyasha's head. He took a letter out of his pocket and placed it in Inuyasha's hand. "Give that to Jaken."

"Like hell I will!" Inuyasha yelled into the carpet.

He ignored his brother's complaints. "After he receives this, Jaken will bring you something that you are to bring to me as a means of compensating the Higurashi family."

Inuyasha clenched his hand around the note and stuffed it into his haori as he stood up. If it was for Kagome's family, he'd be answering to Kagome if it didn't get delivered, and he knew her wrath could be far scarier than Sesshoumaru's. "Keh, you look like shit in those clothes."

Sesshoumaru grunted. "You have cat ears, Half-Breed."

Kagome left her room with Rin riding on her back the same way she rode on Inuyasha's. Rin seemed to be quite a lot better after the rice and a good night's sleep in a bed, something she hadn't had in years. She hated being sick, but it was nice to have someone really take care of her.

Rin wasn't really sure what was going on, but from what Kagome explained, she wasn't really allowed to talk about a lot of what she did with Sesshoumaru. She noticed his clothes and smiled. "You look dashing, my Lord!"

Sesshoumaru felt the miniscule amount of color in his face drain. Having her compliment him was something he was used to, but having her do so about his appearance in front of other people was slightly embarrassing. Kagome's lips pursed together, and she shot Inuyasha the 'I'll sit you if you laugh' look.

"That's enough, Rin." Sesshoumaru said, following Kagome all the way to the bus stop, where he was faced with the greatest horror of the Modern Era. In his mind, he could only describe the bus as a carriage of human filth, where he, Sesshoumaru, was expected to stand quietly among a dozen humans, all who were within mere meters of him. It was repulsive, he hated it, and the fifteen minute trip seemed to take hours to him.

Soon, Sesshoumaru found himself standing at the entrance to the Tokyo Children's Health Center, the mecca of healing and the source of hope for the continuous flow of people that exited and entered the building. The building smelled of illness, death, broken dreams, and disappointment all mixed in with an odd, sterile scent he couldn't quite place.

He stood and watched the people that came and went, noticing how utterly depressed most of them were. When he caught up to Kagome, she was already sitting in the lobby of the Emergency Room, filling out a bunch of papers. "Hey, what's your last name?"

"Last name?" Sesshoumaru curiously asked.

"Don't you have a family name?" Kagome asked. "You have to, right? How else would people know which family you belong to?"

The slightest amount of amusement danced in his eyes. "Prowess. Strength. Steel. They define my family more than a name ever could."

Kagome rolled her eyes. "Sesshoumaru Inutaisho it is then. And this is Rin Inutaisho, your adopted daughter."

"Daughter?" Sesshoumaru inquired. "Is that necessary?"

"Yes, it is. If you're not her legal guardian, Child Services will come and put her in another home." Kagome explained. "This isn't like your time. Humans really look out for children now." Her eyes glanced down to the next section. "Do you know anything about Rin's medical history? Does anything run in her family?"

"Being murdered." Sesshoumaru replied.

Kagome sighed. "Is she allergic to anything?"

As the questions went on, it became apparent that despite his efforts to save her life, Sesshoumaru knew next to nothing about Rin, despite the fact that he had literally heard her chatter on and on for hours at a time.

Kagome finished filling out the forms and took them to the counter, then returned to her seat to wait. When she turned and saw Rin asleep in the chair next to her, Kagome rubbed her forehead. "I really don't get you. You hate humans, want to kill your brother, and then suddenly, there's this little girl following you. Not only that, you'll do anything for her, except…" She tried to say 'care about her,' but Sesshoumaru obviously cared about her, or he wouldn't have gone so far to help her.

"Except what?" Sesshoumaru asked, pushing her farther into a conversational corner.

She crossed her arms and leaned back in the chair, considering Sesshoumaru's actions. His pride meant everything to him, and yet he was willing to let a human 'bitch' put Beads of Subjugation on him, drag him to another era, and tell him what to do. However, he was still being a stubborn jerk, incapable of admitting he cared about Rin.

Inuyasha acted like that. Did that mean he loved her? Or was he just a jerk?

"Nothing." Kagome said.

A few minutes later, a male nurse entered the room and called for them. "Inutaisho? Rin Inutaisho?"

The nametag on his scrubs said 'Hiro Takahashi,' and he lead them down a long hallway and into a small room with an examination table. "All right, we're going to need to get her measurements." He said, writing down her weight. "You're doing great. Could I get you to stand next to this wall?"

Hiro scribbled something down on his clipboard and went to a cabinet where he took out a small plastic cup. Kagome felt her heart start to thump. She hadn't thought about what would happen at this point, but it was probably going to be bad.

He knelt in front of Rin and showed her the cup, pointing to the tiny restroom connected to their exam room. "I need to a urine sample from you. So what I need you to do is—" The glare Hiro was getting stopped him mid-sentence.

Sesshoumaru had murder in his eyes. "And just what sick, perverted need do you have for _that_?"

Kagome stepped on his foot. "Sesshoumaru…Heel."

_Wham!_

Kagome took the cup and gave it to Rin. "Pee in this, okay?"

Rin nodded and went into the little bathroom, and Kagome used the chance to try and clean up the mess Sesshoumaru almost made of the nurse's insides. "About Sesshoumaru…"

Hiro shrugged. "This is the last fucking time I'm doing three shifts in a row." He said, sliding Rin's chart into a compartment on the door as he left.

"Heel! Heel! Heel!" Kagome turned to the irate taiyoukai, who was making the floor vibrate with his angry growl. "This is a hospital. They're going to need to do and take things from Rin and you can't kill them for it!"

Sesshoumaru stared daggers into her as he stood. "Explain to this Sesshoumaru what her urine has to do with her illness."

"Who cares? Why are you making such a big deal about this? It's just pee." Kagome replied.

Rin emerged from the bathroom with a full cup, which she put on the counter just as the door opened again and the doctor entered. "Hello, my name is Dr. Okawa." The doctor was a middle-aged man wearing a white coat and glasses. Dr. Okawa took the clipboard and grunted as he read it. "112 centimeters…looks like Rin is a little short for her age in addition to being considerably underweight."

Dr. Okawa had Rin lie flat on the table and he listened to her heart, her lungs, and then palpated her abdomen, back, and sides. "Do you hear something?" He asked.

Kagome glared at Sesshoumaru, who was emitting a steady, threatening growl as he watched the human man touching and pressing Rin's body in ways that made him feel extremely angry. "Nope." Kagome said with a smile. "I don't hear anything."

Okawa shrugged. After a series of questions, his beeper went off, indicating he was needed elsewhere. "I can't really say for sure what is causing Rin's illness, so I'm ordering diagnostic tests and recommending she be admitted for treatment for this anemia. Depending on the outcome of the tests, you'll be referred to a new doctor."

As Dr. Okawa rushed down the hall to help his next patient, he wondered if it would _ever_ become easier to have his job. He saw the telltale bloody gums and bruises of leukemia. Whether or not she lived or died, she had a long, hard fight ahead of her.

Another nurse came in and led them to a room with a cold metal table in the middle. This nurse, a warmer-seeming female, put Rin on the edge of the table. "Hey there, Cutie." She took Rin's arm and used a swab to clean the inside of her elbow, filling the room with the foreign scent of alcohol. "I'm going to need to take some of your blood so we can find out why you're sick, okay?"

Rin laid eyes on the needle and her eyes widened in panic. She looked up at Sesshoumaru, begging him to save her from the threat that lay on the nurse's metal tray, and Sesshoumaru looked at Kagome, who shook her head. When Sesshoumaru did nothing, Rin turned her pleading eyes to the nurse. Why would someone who seemed so nice want to do something so terrible to her?

Kagome held her free hand. "It's all right. It doesn't hurt that bad. I actually just had to have my blood taken a few weeks ago. It'll only hurt for a second."

Sesshoumaru watched Kagome's gesture intently, noticing how Rin visibly relaxed when Kagome held her tiny hand. Under a mask of apathy, Sesshoumaru committed the act to his memory. It was odd to see such weak creatures pushing one another to have courage when they were so fragile.

The needle in the nurse's hand could hurt, it could kill, and Rin closed her eyes as the very tip penetrated her arm. She felt a tiny sting, and then exhaled. "That's it?" She asked curiously, watching as the vial filled with blood.

"Yes, now this isn't so bad, is it?" The nurse asked Rin, who shook her head.

Rin shook her head, suddenly feeling a little lightheaded. She could see Sesshoumaru observing with an odd expression on his face. The smell of the sickness on her blood filled the room, overwhelmingly strong to his taiyoukai nose. It seemed to wrong to him that the very blood that sustained her life would try to kill her.

Just as the nurse finished, a man with a mask and scrubs entered. "Is this the patient needing lumbar puncture?"

The nurse nodded. "Lumbar puncture and marrow biopsy." She took Rin by the hand and went behind a folding screen in the corner of the room.

When Sesshoumaru saw Rin's clothes fall to the floor, he was prepared to spring into action. Kagome's glare stopped him, and Rin soon came back into view, in what he thought to be a modest gown. Of course, when he saw it was backless and her bare bottom was completely exposed, the room started to rumble again until Kagome stepped on his foot.

Sesshoumaru was frustrating Kagome to no end; everything made him angry. He wanted to kill the nurse that tried to explain urine samples, the doctor that felt her chest and listened to her heart, the nurse that took her blood, and now, this grown male who could quite obviously see her behind.

However, to Sesshoumaru, all this made humans seem like they had gone completely mad. In exchange for slightly longer lives, they were willing to compromise their dignity, exposing their bodies and fluids to strange people and the odd gadgets they used. Was this part of the cost of beating some of the diseases thought to be fatal in his era?

The man said nothing, but the nurse put Rin back on the table. "All right, now we need to do a lumbar puncture. That means we have to take a sample of the liquid that runs down your spine and into your brain. You'll need to lie down on your side and curl up for this, and it's very, very important that you don't move until the procedure is over. Okay?"

Once again, Rin looked to Sesshoumaru to save her, and he just looked away. She gave up, and lay down on the cold metal table, curling into a fetal position. The man seemed like a monster to her. The mask that was supposed to prevent infection covered his humanity, and his blue eyes seemed so cold to her. The doctor put on a pair of gloves and cleaned her back with alcohol. "You may feel a little pinch." The doctor said, piercing her back with the first of two needles. "This will numb the area."

Sesshoumaru watched Rin's face contort in agony as the painkiller spread through her lower back. She squeezed Kagome's hand, trying her hardest not to run away or break down. For a few minutes, the room was dead silent as the doctor waited for the Lidocaine to numb her back. "Be very still." The doctor said as Rin felt a needle forced into her spine.

"That's not numb!" Rin screamed, trying to jerk away. Pain shot from her lower back, all the way up her body and into her head, which was pounding as spinal fluid drained from her. Her body was held firm by familiar long fingers, and when she looked up, Sesshoumaru was holding her down, trying to keep her from moving while the needle was lodged in her spine. "How could you do this to Rin?!" She felt betrayed, being tortured with such pain while Sesshoumaru kept her still, making her endure having her body violated with the sharp needles.

The doctor withdrew the needle and frowned at the vial of bloody fluid. "Take her for an MRI immediately." He said to the nurse, who nodded and pushed an exhausted, upset Rin down the hall in a wheelchair. He pulled the mask down and scribbled on Rin's medical papers. "Her spinal fluid is bloody, which means she has bleeding in her spine or brain. After Rin has the MRI, we'll finish with the marrow biopsy. I've seen enough at this point to refer you to a hematological oncologist, unless you already know someone."

"No." Kagome said, shaking her head.

Over the next three hours, during which Rin got an MRI, x-rays, and a CAT scan, she refused to so much as look at Sesshoumaru or Kagome. She was too tired to care or think about anything; all she wanted to do was rest. The doctor returned for the final test, the bone marrow biopsy.

"You're almost done, Rin." Kagome said, offering Rin her hand, which Rin refused to even acknowledge.

Rin just lay on her side on the cold table. She was far beyond caring that a grown man could see her butt. The doctor was a monster, worse than any youkai or bandit she had met. He stabbed her with things and hurt her, and Sesshoumaru, her protector, did nothing.

The doctor cleaned her right hipbone with alcohol and Rin could only imagine what horrors were to follow. She looked behind her and saw a huge needle in his hand, a needle intended to go into her very bones. Something cool and smooth was smoothed over her skin, which suddenly felt numb.

The needle went in painlessly, and just when Rin thought it wasn't going to hurt her at all, a sharp, intense pain shot through her side and down her leg. She screamed and clenched her hand around the edge of the table, refusing to cry or call out for Sesshoumaru to save her. _I won't cry. I won't cry. I won't cry…_ Rin chanted in her head, her eyes tightly closed.

When Rin's hand had been pried off the table, she desperately reached out for it again, only to find warm, soft flesh.

Sesshoumaru felt the child squeezing his hand with far more force than he believed she had and could have sworn he felt her pain for a brief moment. As much as Kagome's comfort helped Rin, his seemed to be exponentially more beneficial. "Rin, you're all right."

His sharp senses picked up the sound of her teardrops hitting the metal table as the doctor withdrew the needle and bandaged the wound. "No…Rin hurts. Rin is tired."

"You were really brave today, Rin." Kagome said. Rin still rejected her; she could forgive her Lord Sesshoumaru. She didn't know Kagome well, and all Kagome seemed to do was bring her pain after earning her trust with things like bubble baths.

The doctor checked Rin in to stay at the hospital, and yet another needle invaded Rin's body as they put an IV in her hand to treat the anemia that made her so weak. When she succumbed to her exhaustion, she was frightened and hurting inside and out.

* * *

_**The Next Morning**_

Sesshoumaru awoke to the sound of Kagome returning after a night at her home. The noise awoke Rin, who sat up and stretched. Much to Sesshoumaru's shock, she smelled quite a lot less ill, the black circles under her eyes had disappeared, and some of her color had returned. This was no doubt due to the liquid entering her through the IV needle.

Kagome had, in her hands, a strange box wrapped in colorful paper. "Good morning Rin! You're looking much better today." Rin's dubious eyes watched Kagome as she came toward her with the box. "I brought you a few things today. Some bubble bath, some clothes, crayons, coloring books, and this." She said, holding the box out to Rin.

Rin didn't know about what 'crayons' or 'coloring books' were, but they didn't sound painful. She carefully tore the paper off the box and screamed in utter delight when she pulled the baby doll out. "Sesshoumaru-sama! Look! Isn't she beautiful?!" Rin said, showing her new toy off.

"Hn." Sesshoumaru grunted in reply, watching an altogether strange phenomenon unfold in front of his eyes. Rin cradled the doll, as if comforting the strange object. She treated the baby as if she were its mother, despite the fact that she could barely remember her own mother and was never around babies. The gestures and behavior that Sesshoumaru had a difficult time forcing out of himself Rin gave to the doll as if they were instinct.

"So, what are you going to name her?" Kagome asked.

Rin held the baby close. "Sesshoumaru!"

"Rin, you will not name your fake girl-child after this Sesshoumaru." He said, insult evident in his voice.

Rin frowned. "Why not?"

Kagome was clearly giving her best efforts not to giggle, but eventually, she broke down and laughed at Sesshoumaru, who did little more than glare and her and look away.

On the floor above them, a doctor was standing in a room, staring at the x-rays pinned to a light panel on the wall. "What the hell?" He said, as he compared them to the other imagery taken of Rin's spine.

A nurse entered and gasped as she saw the pictures of the tumor that was growing on Rin's back. "That is the Inutaisho girl's tumor? It looks like…"

The doctor finished her sentence. "A spider."

* * *

**Please Review!**

**Author's Note: **T_here will be pairings later on, but it's not really the purpose of the story. The theme of this story isn't love as much as it is the preciousness of life, something I think everyone has to assess when dealing with a disease like this._

**Next Chapter: Spider  
**_The doctor gives Rin's diagnosis, and casually mentions the tumor on her back happens to be shaped like a spider. Kagome returns to the Feudal Era, leaving Sesshoumaru to behave himself…which he fails in doing. Sesshoumaru visits Toys 'R Us and decides humans have gone mad._

Special thank to my reviewers: Ru-Doragon, Shiori The Lady Kazekage, ArizonaBay, Silver Moon Vampire, Asumi Kiribashi, fluffyinu94, xxxchocoholic, crazyhorsegirl3, Kagome Lady of Darkness, shikonprincess15, mangadreams, WhiteWolfChickie, TheRYU, DK, Solaira, InuJoey, lindajrjt, DarkAngel512, supersillee06, llebreknit, and Elvin BlueEyes!

I wasn't planning on writing so often on this story, but the reviews are really encouraging. Thank you!


	4. Spider

**

* * *

**

**Affliction  
**_By Miss Kagura  
_Chapter Four – Spider

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Kagome glanced to her side as she waited with a predictably stoic taiyoukai for a man named Dr. Yamaguchi, a pediatric hematological oncologist – someone who specialized with cancers of the blood in children. Sesshoumaru found the fact that such a position existed to be somewhat of a relief, knowing all too well that someone who only does one thing in life usually does it with excellence, if not perfection.

Dr. Yamaguchi entered his office and found the odd-looking man and young female waiting for the bad news that he had to deliver. He saw all sorts of families, from the average to the asymmetrical, like the two people staring at him as he sat.

After introductions, he opened the folder. "We found two different forms of malignant cells growing in Rin's body. Thankfully, most of the symptoms you observed in her were due to extreme anemia, as opposed to more advanced stages of cancer."

Kagome heard Sesshoumaru let out a sigh of relief, and then found she couldn't take her eyes off his expression.

"The most immediate and life-endangering problem is Osteosarcoma, which is a bone cancer. Rin has a very rare form that has formed a tumor on her spine and metastasized into the flesh of her back. The location makes it highly dangerous to her well being, and it could spread to her brain through her spinal fluid or cause damage to her spinal cord if it isn't dealt with soon." Yamaguchi said. "The other cancerous cells we found in Rin were due to Acute Myelogenous Leukemia, or AML, which is a highly aggressive type of leukemia."

Sesshoumaru understood enough of what he was saying to know Rin was very, very sick. "Is she going to live?" He asked, a slightly threatening tone making it past his cold demeanor.

Yamaguchi gave Sesshoumaru a sympathetic look, which only seemed to infuriate him. "In healthy children with no complications, the five-year survival rate for AML is about fifty percent. AML is by far the most deadly type of leukemia."

Kagome could see Sesshoumaru's jaw swelling out as he grinded his teeth together. "What happens now?" She asked.

"I'm recommending chemotherapy induction, which will last about a week, followed by removal of the tumor on her back. She'll also be placed on a bone marrow transplant list." He said.

The next few minutes were spent explaining chemotherapy and the possible side-effects. "In other words, you intend to poison my Rin as a means of helping her?" Sesshoumaru asked, totally unaware of the fact he had called her 'his Rin.'

Yamaguchi frowned. "The purpose is to poison the cancer cells. The tumor will kill her if left to grow."

Sesshoumaru filtered out the words he found relevant. _"Hair loss, severe weight loss, anemia, headaches, nausea, vomiting, joint and bone pain, nose bleeds..."_ He closed his eyes and rubbed the side of his head, wondering why Rin's survival required what was quite literally worse than a trip to Hell itself.

"Once remission is achieved, Rin will need maintenance chemotherapy and frequent testing to keep the leukemia from returning." Yamaguchi said, totally unaware of the burden he was putting on Sesshoumaru, who realized that in order for Rin to continue to live _if_ she beat this disease, she needed to stay in Kagome's time.

Without him.

Sesshoumaru had never really thought about parting with Rin by any other means than death, and for some reason, the idea of leaving her to live in another era made him feel a strange sting deep in his chest.

Without him!

An unfamiliar sense of sadness crawled through Sesshoumaru's body. If Rin survived, there would still be no more flowers, no more shy kisses on the hand, and no more smiles for him. He lived a cold life, constantly on a path of destruction and battle, one brightened by the sunny girl hiding under the skin of the sick child down the hall. She was the sun, and he was the moon. And, like the moon, the only light Sesshoumaru had he took from the Rin.

Without him?

As Sesshoumaru sat, listening to all the terrible things that awaited his Rin, he considered what he knew about the future and realized something important. He _never_ achieved his goal of establishing an empire, and apparently also failed in doing anything that made his existence notable enough that humans would remember him.

No one noticed the moon without the sun's light. Was it wrong to stay in the sun? His lips twisted into a cruel scowl as he remembered that the sun also caused cancer, and could kill those who didn't protect themselves from it. She was his sun, and someday, he might die because of her.

Sesshoumaru tore himself from a web of metaphors and irony as the doctor called his name.

A bunch of papers were shoved in his direction, as well as a writing tool Sesshoumaru didn't recognize. The metal tip almost sang as he dragged it over the paper's surface, silky black ink sentencing Rin as he granted his consent. Once, twice, three times he signed his name, wondering if Rin was so wrong to feel betrayed. There was an unspoken promise between them that he would always protect her, and yet there he was, giving his permission to a doctor that intended to inflict intense pain and suffering on her.

After the meeting, Kagome nudged him. "I need to get back to Inuyasha. Any minute now he's going to come looking for me." She held out a wad of cash. "I borrowed this from my mom. Try not to get into trouble, okay?"

Sesshoumaru pocketed the money and said nothing whatsoever in reply. "Rin's going to be okay. She's got to be strong, or she couldn't put up with you." Kagome teased, trying to erase the grim expression plastered to his face. "I have a friend who got leukemia when she was a little bit younger than Rin." She said.

"Did she live?" Sesshoumaru asked.

Kagome nodded. "Her name is Eri, and she's turning eighteen in a few weeks. I could ask her to talk to Rin if you want."

Oblivious to the mechanics of encouragement, Sesshoumaru stared at her for a moment before he responded. "Why would I want that?" He asked, curious as to what Kagome's friend would do to help Rin.

"It'll help Rin believe she can get better." Kagome explained.

"That is acceptable." Sesshoumaru said, ignoring a few other things Kagome told him before leaving him alone in the hospital. His carefully opened the door to Room 452, knowing well from the sounds he could hear from outside that Rin was sleeping.

The doll Kagome had given her had fallen off the bed, and lay on the floor with a box of spilled crayons and a crude half-colored drawing of a yellow flower. Sesshoumaru picked up the piece of white paper, noting how flat and fake the wax flower looked. Several of the petals weren't colored in yet, and from the yellow crayon Rin clutched in her sleeping hands, it was apparent that she didn't have the energy to finish it.

Sesshoumaru didn't want her to wake up and feel frustrated, faced with the fact she couldn't even finish something as simple as coloring in the drawing. Long fingers gently pried the crayon out of her hand, and then brought it down on the piece of paper he had placed on the table beside her bed.

Armed with a crayon in a Tokyo hospital, Sesshoumaru understood just a little more of the mystery of his father. His hand was for killing, destruction, and inflicting pain upon others. He had acknowledged this for as long as he could remember; he chose to live up to his name and had never given it second thought.

Sesshoumaru did not regret what he was, but as he watched the bright yellow wax spread over the page, he felt tired and unsatisfied with what he used to take pride in. If he became the absolute best, he'd just be the best fighter and little else. As powerful as Sesshoumaru was, he could not and did not want to change the fact that killing was more or less the reason he lived.

"Tenseiga…" Sesshoumaru whispered to himself, realizing that his father must have gone through a similar phase. He finally understood that his father didn't leave him Tenseiga due to some lack of favor; his father simply knew Sesshoumaru would come to the moment that killing wasn't enough. With Tenseiga, the hand that dealt so much pain and death could be used to heal and save.

Sesshoumaru, just slightly wiser, finished the drawing and left it on the table, and then picked up the crayons and the doll. Rin seemed so out of place there, sleeping in a bland gown in room that reeked of sterile instruments and chemicals. She should have been running barefoot after him through a field, annoying Jaken and petting Ah-Un. Some part of him felt a little angry with himself for bringing her to such a horrid place.

The door opened and closed loudly, and Sesshoumaru barked at the nurse who entered. "Quiet!"

"We wanted to let you know that Rin will be getting her first administration of chemo at eight in the morning." The woman said. "You might want to stick around for the whole day if you can, since she may have some severe side effects."

Sesshoumaru closed his fist and then clenched it until it was bleeding. "How severe?"

"Vomiting blood, severe nausea, rashes, head and muscle ache." The nurse replied as she left again.

He unclenched his hand and realized that while talking to the nurse, he dug his claws into Rin's doll, destroying it in what appeared to be a cruel manner. Sesshoumaru frowned, knowing that Rin would be looking for it as soon as she woke up, and would be extremely upset if she knew anything happened to the fake girl child.

Realizing he couldn't fix it, Sesshoumaru remembered the cash Kagome and left him and decided that he could always just replace it, and hope to find one that looked similar enough that Rin wouldn't notice. He listened to Rin's breathing for a minute, confirming she was in a deep enough sleep that she wouldn't awaken when he was gone, and then left the hospital, getting into the first 'taxi' he saw parked outside.

According to Kagome, taxi drivers could take him anywhere…which hopefully included some place to replace the beloved fake baby human. "I need to replace this." Sesshoumaru said, holding the broken doll up for the cab driver.

"My kid has one just like that! Bought it at Toys 'R Us." He said.

"Then that is where I wish to go." Sesshoumaru replied.

During the ten minute ride, Sesshoumaru amused himself by picking apart the disgusting smells in the cab. There were eight different types of booze that he knew of, over a dozen different vomit contributors, hundreds of human scents, food, urine, and a scent that suggested someone had given birth in the backseat of the strange yellow contraption.

When they arrived, the driver turned and took the bill Sesshoumaru offered. "Should I wait?"

"That won't be necessary." Sesshoumaru said. The hospital smelled like death, rubbing alcohol, and despair. It was like a massive homing beacon to his senses.

The sliding glass doors opened and a gust of cool air hit Sesshoumaru as he entered the large store. He looked to the left, and then the right, craning his neck to the strangest looking creature he had ever laid eyes upon. It had the body similar to a horse, only with very long legs and a comically lengthy neck.

"Did you know the giraffe is the tallest mammal in the world?" The statue played a recorded fact when the motion sensor picked up on Sesshoumaru. Sensing that the 'giraffe' was neither real nor a threat, Sesshoumaru shrugged and ventured farther into the store, wondering how tall a real giraffe was and if it was taller than his true form.

More importantly, how tall would it be a giraffe be if he bit its head off? And, how did they taste?

Sesshoumaru suddenly found himself staring at two dozen rows of toys. He believed humanity had quite obviously gone mad. He walked down aisle after aisle, past action figures, Silly putty, soccer balls, board games, and dress up clothes. Finally, he spotted a section will dolls like Rin's fake baby human, which he realized he had left in the cab.

He picked up one box, and then realized the doll had the wrong hair color. Rin's fake human had brown hair. Or was it black? Even if he could remember that, there were several eye colors to choose from. Sesshoumaru sighed and started to walk around, trying to remember exactly what Rin's doll looked like.

Along the way, Sesshoumaru walked past a plush frog. "Jaken." He picked the toy up and drop kicked it, smirking just slightly. "How you have been missed." He marveled at how fluffy and soft it was – perfect for someone who bruised easily, like Rin.

He arched his brows when he came upon some pink roller skates. Did humans actually think it was smart to tie wheels to their feet? He sighed and continued until he saw some smaller dolls called 'Bratz,' which, as far as he could tell, were like miniature, plastic prostitutes. Rin's fake human allowed her to act out maternal instincts, but these simply seemed to exist to teach girls how to walk around half-naked and take multiple partners.

Next, he found books, and the first that caught his eye was something about some 'Disney' Princesses, which baffled him, because Sesshoumaru had no idea where 'Disney' was or why their princesses all seemed to be of very different ethnic origins and customs. Some even seemed to be time-jumpers, like Kagome. It was about beautiful princesses though and was illustrated, perfect for a little girl who was stuck in bed, like Rin.

Ten minutes later, after a sweep down the games aisle, Sesshoumaru adopted an abandoned shopping cart and dumped his choices in. Toys 'R Us seemed to have a great deal of things that seemed like they would please Rin. "Brown hair and brown eyes." Sesshoumaru remembered of Rin's doll.

He went back to the aisle with the dolls and found there were none of the right ones left, although there had been only minutes before. Sesshoumaru looked up and saw a little girl walking away with a box in her hands, and his sharp eyes told him that she had taken Rin's doll. "You. I want that doll."

The little girl turned and stuck her tongue out at him. "Too bad!"

Sesshoumaru didn't want to make a scene, so he swallowed his pride. "Please."

"I already said no!" She replied.

The girl made it to the end of the aisle when Sesshoumaru's youki whips wrapped around each of her ankles and yanked her legs out from under her, causing the girl to crash into the floor, face first. While she was crying for her mother, Sesshoumaru took the doll, checked out, and left.

He returned to the hospital and found Inuyasha sitting in Rin's room. Sesshoumaru put the bags down and held his hand out, and Inuyasha put a huge diamond in it. "Jaken brought that for you."

Inuyasha looked at the bags and said nothing, much to Sesshoumaru's surprise. "You had a fight with your bitch." Sesshoumaru said, narrowing his eyes.

"Keh." Inuyasha said, crossing his arms. "How would you know?"

"There is only dirt on one side of your clothing, indicative of subjugation." Sesshoumaru said.

They were both quiet for a moment and Sesshoumaru wondered why Inuyasha simply didn't leave. "Look, I don't want Kagome hanging around here. Being around dying kids changes people." Inuyasha could already see the effects Rin was having on Kagome, who went ballistic when he lightly bopped Shippou on the head.

Sesshoumaru knew his brother had a point. It was inevitable that such circumstances would lead to personal change, especially in someone so young. "Whether or not Kagome undergoes these changes you speak of is her decision." He replied. "The stress of her decision would probably be lessened if the one she cared for wasn't an idiot."

Inuyasha shrugged. "Who knows who that is? Wolfshit and his crappy telling her he loves her, or maybe Hobo and his stupid gifts and being nice. They're both idiots."

"There is another idiot in Kagome's life that she cares for more than the others combined." Sesshoumaru said. "It's really rather obvious."

Inuyasha growled and leapt to his feet. "Someone else?! Have you met him?!"

"Unfortunately." Sesshoumaru replied as he started to free Rin's doll from its plastic prison. "He is stupid, rude, vulgar, impatient, and violent."

"I'll kill him!" Inuyasha yelled, stomping out of the room.

Sesshoumaru sighed and unpacked Rin's gifts, wondering how his brother could be so blind about Kagome. She was just as blind as he was though, incapable of realizing he loved her as well. He protected her, stayed by her side, and made sure nothing and no one got near her. No one would do such things unless they truly cared for someone else.

Rin opened her eyes and sat up, and picked up the flower drawing next to the bed. "Lord Sesshoumaru!" Her eyes were filled with glee and excitement as she saw the stuffed frog, the games, and the book he brought her. "All this…for Rin?" She slid out from in between the sheets and hugged Sesshoumaru's legs, but then pointed at the doll. "That's not Rin's doll. Rin's doll was a girl, and she was wearing pink!"

Sesshoumaru looked down at the doll and frowned. The box clearly read 'My First Son' and the doll was clothed in blue. He attacked a human child to steal the wrong doll. "Rin, your other doll…was stolen."

"By who?" Rin asked. "Why can't you just go get it back for me?"

"Inuyasha stole it." Sesshoumaru answered. "I could take it back no easier than I could take Tessaiga."

Rin looked sad for a moment, then shrugged and hugged the stuffed frog. "Thank you for taking care of Rin."

He patted her on the head. "Rin, starting tomorrow, the doctors are going to be giving you a lot of medicines to help you get better. For a little while though, they are going to make you very ill."

She stepped back from him and clutched the frog impossibly tight. "Will Rin have to be hurt with more needles?"

"Yes." Sesshoumaru said. "The doctors also found a growth on your back. In about a week, you'll be put to sleep while they cut it out of you."

He could feel her panic as fresh tears started to roll over Rin's cheeks. "Rin would rather die!" She screamed.

"You do not know what you are saying." Sesshoumaru said, cringing from her words.

Rin lowered her voice and sat on the floor. "Have you ever died before?" She asked, staring at the bland pattern of the linoleum.

"No." Sesshoumaru said, sitting next to her.

"It isn't bad." Rin said. "But I'm not ready."

It was something they had _never_ spoken of, even in the comforts of their pack with Jaken. He didn't know much about the way she was before her first death, but nothing really changed after her second death in Hell. The fact she had come to terms with her own mortality shocked him in a way. If anything, Sesshoumaru thought Rin might be angry with him in the afterlife when she inevitably died of old age or otherwise. "Not ready?"

Rin nodded. "Rin wants to marry Kohaku and have babies."

A wide-eyed taiyoukai gasped and stared at the ceiling, mentally berating himself for letting Kohaku travel with them at times. But as far as the problem at hand was concerned, Sesshoumaru realized Rin's encounters with death left her with a rather mature and peaceful view of mortality. She would die someday, but there were things in life that she wanted to do first.

Still, only moments before, Rin had screamed that she'd rather die than undergo chemotherapy. "Rin, if you want to do those things, you have no choice but to fight." Sesshoumaru said, offering her his hand, knowing it would probably have the same calming effect it had the day before.

Rin took it and squeezed. "You know what the worst part of death is?"

"What?" Sesshoumaru asked.

Rin's voice was barely a whisper as she looked right into his eyes. "Rin would never stop missing you."

"Rin…" Sesshoumaru felt a lump in his throat as Rin's words repeated themselves in his head. "Stop speaking such pointless nonsense."

With a knock on the door, Dr. Yamaguchi entered. He made small talk while he read Rin's chart. "How are you feeling today, Rin?"

"Much better." Rin replied, not feeling particularly interested in conversing with the doctor after the emotional talk with Sesshoumaru. "Dr. Yamaguchi, what's growing on my back?" She asked after a few more minutes of his talking, remembering Sesshoumaru mention a growth.

"Well, it's simply a mass of flesh that isn't good for you." He replied. "Oddly enough, yours seems to look like a spider growing just under the skin of your back. Well, I've got to run. I'll see you in the morning."

The door closed and the room immediately started to rumble. "Lord Sesshoumaru? Does that mean Naraku did this to me?"

"It means…Naraku is a dead man." Sesshoumaru growled.

* * *

**Next Chapter: The Comforter  
**_Rin gets her first dose of chemotherapy while Sesshoumaru is faced with the decision to stay by her side or go after Naraku. Sesshoumaru and Kagome talk about Inuyasha. Inuyasha and Rin talk about Sesshoumaru. Stay tuned for the next installment!_

Special thanks to: supersilee06, Kagome Lady of Darkness, Ru-Doragon, Kyuu-kun, Elvin BlueEyes, Azumi Kiribashi, shikonpriness15, Yideunbyung Kim, fluffyinu94, Black-Dragon1003, helikestheymikey, Solaira, Spitfire21, BlueSil Eyes, Shiori the Lady Kazekage, mangadreams, sorata-chan, crazyhorsegirl3, Demoness-MarlstonWells69ner, shae, livingdeadgirl, llebreknit, crazypoet, InuJoey, and lindajrjt!


	5. The Comforter

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**Affliction  
**_By Miss Kagura_  
Chapter Five – The Comforter

**

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The next morning came a little too soon for Rin's liking.

Some part of her expected Sesshoumaru to be gone when she awoke. It seemed natural for him to run off and go hunt down Naraku; it was his way of protecting her. Instead, Sesshoumaru was in her room, sleeping in a chair next to her bed.

The increase in her heartbeat from being awake woke him up, and he slowly opened his eyes to a perplexed girl. "What is it, Rin?"

"You're here." Rin said. "I thought you would leave."

Sesshoumaru's expression melted into what was almost a smile. "Naraku will die. Next week."

The doorknob slowly turned and Kagome ducked her head in, checking to see if Rin was awake. She had come back to offer her moral support to Rin, since Sesshoumaru was still helplessly aloof for the most part.

When she tried to take a bath the night before, she got a rather odd surprise and opened the bathroom door in her home to find Sesshoumaru in the shower. After a long discussion about locking doors, Sesshoumaru changed and went back to the hospital again.

"Hey Rin!" Kagome said.

A figure in red skulked in after her, mumbling. Rin glared at Inuyasha, knowing Sesshoumaru told her he stole her doll. "Hey Rin. It's still a little while before your appointment. Would you like a bubble bath?" Kagome asked. It was a little unconventional, but it would probably be better to start the day off with something good and relaxing.

"Uh-huh!" Rin said, following Kagome into the tiny bathroom.

Kagome turned on the water, and then flipped the drain in when it was warm enough. "All you have to do to make a good bubble bath is pour the liquid in like this." She said, dumping some of the bubble bath at the spot where water from the spout hit the bathtub, producing a huge cloud of bubbles. "Did Sesshoumaru buy you all those toys?"

"Yes, Rin was very happy." Rin said, putting her arms up for Kagome to pull off her gown. She still wasn't sure what she should think of Kagome. Kagome was obviously very sweet and kind to her, but most of the unpleasant things that had happened to her were easily blamed on Kagome. As far as her young mind could tell, the entire hospital episode might be like the loss of her first tooth. When one of Rin's teeth became sore and loose, Jaken explained to her that it absolutely had to be pulled out. After the sting and blood from the loss of the tooth, the pain was gone and Rin felt fine. "Rin has a question."

"What?" Kagome asked, tilting Rin's head back and letting her lean into the water, wetting her hair. She squeezed shampoo into her hand, and then started to lather Rin's hair.

"Rin knows Kagura was in love with Sesshoumaru-sama, and Rin thinks maybe he liked her too." Rin said. "It reminded Rin of you and Sesshoumaru-sama's brother. Jaken says I'm being a dumb human, but I think I'm right. Do you love him?"

Kagome couldn't decide which part of Rin's question was the worst; Kagura in love with Sesshoumaru, Rin discussing her love life with Jaken, or the fact she obviously expected Kagome to answer her. "Uhhh…" Kagome wondered how Rin understood such a thing when Inuyasha had been by her side almost every day for two years and hadn't figured it out. Deciding that changing the subject would be her best escape, Kagome questioned Rin about Kagura. "Really? Kagura liked Sesshoumaru?"

Rin shook her head. "No, Kagura was in love with Sesshoumaru-sama. She always came to see him, and even asked him to help her. I don't really think she liked him though, she was always calling him bad names."

"Why do you think Sesshoumaru liked her back?" Kagome asked.

"Cause he went to find her when she died, and he was really angry at Naraku." Rin said.

Kagome thought back to the day Sesshoumaru broke Tokijin, lashing out as he was taunted about her death. And when they were too late to find Kagura before she died, Sesshoumaru was there and he did seem a little thoughtful. "I bet those two would have had some mean kids."

Rin giggled and shook her arm. "So do you love Inuyasha? I need to know!"

"Why?" Kagome asked, smiling playfully at the girl.

"Cause then you would be like my aunt!" Rin said, splashing her hands down in the water. "I mean…if Sesshoumaru-sama was my…then you'd be…nevermind."

"Awwww…Rin, you think of Sesshoumaru as your father, don't you?" Kagome asked, leaning her head back to rinse out the shampoo. "He seems a little cold though."

Rin looked up at Kagome with a more serious expression. "Rin means no disrespect to her real father, because he took care of Rin. So does Sesshoumaru-sama though, even if he doesn't think of me the same way."

Kagome bitterly smiled at the child and leaned in closer. "Can I tell you a secret, Rin? Sesshoumaru is a lot more like his brother than he would ever admit. It's so obvious that he cares a lot about you, but he'll never admit it. The best thing you can do is keep on loving him, even if he never tells you how he feels."

"So you _do_ love Inuyasha!" Rin said, visibly brightening. "I knew it! Stupid Jaken is wrong again. He says you're just 'Inuyasha's bitch' and that Inuyasha doesn't really like you."

Kagome made a mental note to stomp on Jaken's head the next time she ran into him, and finished bathing he girl, who knew a surprising amount of gossip about Sesshoumaru. According to Rin, his mother was an extremely frightening woman, but also very beautiful. "She didn't seem very much like a mother though…" Rin commented, shedding some light on the taiyoukai and all of his inapproachability.

After she was dried off and redressed, Rin stepped out of the bathroom and suddenly remembered exactly what she was supposed to be doing in a few minutes. Her legs froze, and she found herself unable to step back into the room. "Rin?" New tears formed in her eyes and hung her head as she tried to force herself to walk to Sesshoumaru. She wanted to go back to her warm bath and hide from the needles under a layer of bubbles.

Dr. Yamaguchi entered with a clipboard and more paperwork. "Mr. Inutaisho, I'd like to have a few moments with you and your…partner." He said, glancing over to Kagome.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Inuyasha asked. "Them?"

"Inuyasha." A threatening tone charged Sesshoumaru's voice as he spoke. "Silence."

They followed the doctor out into the hall, leaving Rin and Inuyasha alone. Inuyasha smelled her fear and the perspiration that was already starting to escape from her clean skin. "Scared?" He asked, half-teasing, half-interested. When he saw Rin's lip quivering, he realized she was just a few words away from crying, something he didn't want. Kagome would sit him, it would probably cause a fight with Sesshoumaru, and he didn't want to see it. "Gah, don't cry. If you start crying, I'll get hurt. Do you want that?"

Rin considered her knowledge of his doll-theft and nodded.

Inuyasha, totally unaware of the lie his brother had told to the girl, frowned. "Only Sesshoumaru's kid would want that."

"His kid?" Rin asked. "But I'm not his--"

"I have a nose too, you know!" Inuyasha said. "Trust me, you're his kid. He protects you. You follow him and have even started acting like him. Answer me this, do you like me?"

Rin shook her head at the thief, giving him a firm scowl.

"See? Just like him." Inuyasha said. "He's just too much of a bastard to admit he likes his little human."

"Like how you're too much of umm….a 'bas-tard'…to admit you love Kagome-chan?" Rin innocently asked.

"What?!" Inuyasha yelled. "I don't love her, you nosy little brat!" He felt his cheeks start to burn at the idea of admitting his feelings for Kagome, one of many things he vowed to resolve after Naraku was dead.

Rin frowned. "So she loves you and you don't love her back?"

"Just what makes you think that?" Inuyasha asked, feeling uncomfortable under the girl's dreamy curiosity about love and his relationship with Kagome.

"Kagome-chan said so." Rin said, clapping her hand over her mouth. "Oh! Rin wasn't supposed to tell!"

"Really?" Inuyasha asked. "She said that?! That exact thing? She said she loves me? Fuck!"

"Fuck?" Rin questioned. "What does that mean?"

Sesshoumaru couldn't quite hear what was going on in the room, but his hearing did pick up on Rin saying the words 'bastard' and 'fuck.' He looked up at the wall and realized it took less than two minutes for his vulgar brother to teach his pure little Rin two curse words. With a frustrated sigh, he turned his attention back to the doctor, who was going over some boring list of obscure side-effects.

"It's a word you don't need to say." Inuyasha warned.

Silence filled the room as Rin's mind drifted from the subject of love to the impending sense of doom she felt, still standing in the bathroom doorway. How much was it going to hurt? How sick would she be? Would it make the ugly bruises go away and let her return to her life? Rin had always tried to be a 'good girl,' obeying Sesshoumaru, being nice to Jaken, and her parents taught her that was the way to find happiness. All 'happiness-through-kindness' had earned her was indescribable pain, weakness, and needles.

There was a sharp contrast between what Rin wanted in her life and what Rin had. She wanted to wake up next to Ah-Un and forget the terrible nightmare of the 'hospital.' She wanted to scamper after Sesshoumaru with dirty, bare feet and a bouquet of flowers in one hand. She wanted to laugh and not be afraid. The slightest sense of bitterness started to crawl into her heart as she realized how unfair it was to have cancer.

Inuyasha's head tilted as he saw something in Rin he recognized. Her face was the same as a little hanyou boy he used to see when he looked into his mother's mirror and tugged on his loathed ears. She hated being sick, and found it just as unfair as he once thought about his hanyou blood. It was the same bitter agony, just twisted around different circumstances. In Rin's story, dog ears were replaced with bruises. The threat of death lingered in her mind the same way he had once been convinced he'd never live until adulthood. For every time someone inflicted pain on him for what he was, Inuyasha wondered if it was worth it.

Taking this into consideration, Inuyasha restarted the conversation. "Life is shitty, isn't it?"

Rin gasped, but nodded. She looked down at her bruises and frowned. "Rin doesn't deserve this."

"Like I said, life is shitty. Some people have easy lives, like Sesshoumaru and Kagome. Either one of them could just walk away and do whatever the fuck they want. But not us." Inuyasha explained.

"Us?" Rin asked, taking a step forward toward the hanyou, who was crouching on the floor.

"We're not like other people. We're the ones that have to fight for the right to keep breathing." Inuyasha said. "Do you know what you have to do?"

Rin stepped closer to the hanyou, half-frightened by his cryptic behavior and just as relieved he wasn't treating her like a child with a bad cold. "What?"

"Fight. Live. Prove everyone wrong. Get pissed off when you want to, but put everything you've got into the fight. If you live, you win. If you die, you still win, because you spent your strength fighting and not rotting." Inuyasha said to Rin, who was now inches from his face, soaking up the intense, empowering words. The little girl that followed Sesshoumaru was gone whether or not Rin lived. The only person who could save Rin was Rin, and for that to happen, she had to become stronger, and leave the weak little girl in her behind.

Rin threw her arms around his neck in a silent embrace, thanking Inuyasha. "Keh. That's enough; I don't need to smell like brat all day." Inuyasha squirmed and put a hand between them, prying her off him.

Rin decided to forgive him for stealing her doll.

A few minutes later, the doctor, Sesshoumaru, and Kagome returned to find Rin's frightened expression gone. She looked almost angry, with her jaw set and her brows almost knotted together. "Rin is ready."

"You're certainly being brave about this." Kagome said, surprised to see such a change. She looked up to Inuyasha, who was looking away with his trademark 'Yes-I-Just-Did-Something-Nice-But-Won't-Admit-It' face.

Inuyasha felt his cheeks catch on fire under Kagome's scrutiny as the knowledge that she actually did love him was considered in various parts of his brain and one part of his anatomy.

Sesshoumaru picked up on the change of his brother's scent, considered his bizarre expression, and the new words he taught Rin. "Inuyasha, leave. Do not make me explain why."

Kagome watched in confusion as Inuyasha left without much of an argument, but brushed it off and walked with Sesshoumaru and Rin into an exam room. Rin was changed into another backless gown as Dr. Yamaguchi spoke. "Since patients are likely to vomit frequently, the first round of chemotherapy is usually done almost entirely by injection. The first medicine we're going to give you is called methotrexate, which will help slow the tumor on your back from spreading."

Rin felt Kagome take one of her hands as a spot on her back was cleaned with alcohol. She winced when the needle pierced her skin, but didn't cry out and didn't let any tears fall. It felt like fire running up her back, but it only lasted a few moments.

An IV was brought in and attached to a needle on the top of her hand. Liquid quickly dripped from the bag of liquid into her arm while she was given several more shots in the spine. Rin hated those the most, and didn't mind the shots that were injected into her arm or directly into her veins half as much.

Less than an hour later, Rin was finished with the injections, although the IV was changed with a different drug and she was allowed to go back to her room. A strange, dull ache was starting to settle over her, and Rin curled up under her sheets.

"Rin, are you feeling all right?" Sesshoumaru asked, seeing her ball up her body on the bed.

Rin closed her eyes as she started to feel a little nauseated, and managed to fall asleep for a few minutes before awakening to a sharp pain in her stomach. "Sesshoumaru-sama? Rin feels sick." Within seconds, Rin leaned over the edge of the bed and puked into a bucket Sesshoumaru held. Kagome held her hair back as she threw up again, and again, and again. Her body violently heaved, much stronger than a person normally would when sick. Rin could barely breathe without ejecting more bloody bile into the bucket. The acidic liquid burned her throat and tasted like metal, and the vomiting forced it up her nose. When she tried to breathe, it went down her windpipe into her lungs, causing her to scream in pain. Still, it continued, until Rin thought it would never stop.

Finally, Rin collapsed in Kagome's arms, sweating and shaking. Her body felt completely and utterly empty, like she had thrown up her very soul. When she looked up at Kagome, there were tears running down her face. "Rin…Kami…" She held Rin still and ran her fingers through her hair. "You're going to be okay."

Sesshoumaru washed the bucket out and washed bloody vomit off his hand. He looked at Rin, who had so much poison in her body he could smell it on her, perspiring out of her skin after the episode she just had. He returned to her side with a box of tissue and two paper cups of liquid. Her bubbly attitude had disappeared and she lay there with a vacant expression, staring at the wall as her body shook. When Sesshoumaru reached out to touch her sweaty face, the smooth skin was feverish.

Sesshoumaru took the tissue and held it up to her nose. "Blow." He said, drawing her attention. Rin's eyes moved to meet his and she blew her nose, getting most of the vomit out of it. A cup filled with mouthwash was next. "Rinse." Rin let him tip it into her mouth and then swished it around before spitting it back in the cup. Finally he helped her drink cool water, replacing lost hydration.

When Sesshoumaru sat on the bed on the other side of Rin, Rin leaned into his arm. Kagome, still feeling sick, upset, and strangely desperate to escape, stood up and took a few steps away. "I'm sorry but…there's something I need to do. I c-can't stay here anymore today." She wanted to stay and be strong for Rin, but Kagome realized at that point, she just didn't have it in her to watch Rin go through anything else in one day. As she reached the end of the hall, Kagome heard Rin start to wretch again. With a shaky finger, she pressed the elevator button more times than necessary, and then ran to the stairs when the elevator didn't come fast enough.

Back in Room 432, Rin was rinsing her mouth out from the second vomiting spell, which was thankfully shorter and far less intense than the first. "S-Sesshoumaru-sama!" Rin touched the warm liquid dripping from her nose and Sesshoumaru brought the tissues back, holding one over her nose as it bled.

A nurse opened the door to check on Rin, and got little more than a growl and 'Get out.'

When her nose stopped bleeding, Sesshoumaru sat down beside her and ran his claws through her hair. "Rin, I will not make you do this." Sesshoumaru said, chewing on the inside of his mouth. "I will take you home if that is what you wish."

This time, it was Rin who took his hand. "Rin wants to fight."

Sesshoumaru felt relief wash over him over Rin's desire to stick with the torturously painful chemotherapy. For so long, he had thought of her as being delicate, fragile, and incapable of being strong. He felt a very odd sense of pride at seeing her strength.

Sesshoumaru flipped off the brown shoes and sat up in Rin's bed. "Come here." He said to Rin, who crawled onto his lap and rested her head against his chest. When Rin felt his arm wrap around her, pulling her against him, she buried her head in his chest and broke down into sobs, clenching the fabric of his shirt in her little fists. His hand rubbed up and down on her back as Sesshoumaru attempted to comfort her. "It's going to be all right, Little One."

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**Please Review! Today is my birthday, and a review would be a fine gift!**

**Author's Note: **_I apologize for the obvious 'icky' factor of this chapter, but I really wanted to portray leukemia/chemotherapy accurately, and unfortunately it's really rather sickening. I didn't get everything in this chapter that I wanted, so some stuff got bumped into the next chapter._

_Pairings? This isn't really a pairings story at all. There are obvious InuKag undertones, but there won't be __any__ KagSess or RinSess. I know most people who read fanfiction enjoy reading about their favorite pairings (I know I do), but I think romance would detract and cheapen the real point of the story. People reach a point of emotional exhaustion where they just don't have anything left to give in these types of situations and I honestly don't think I could respect Sesshoumaru as a character if I thought he'd set aside some of that to fall in love when Rin was sitting on the fence between life and death. She has __**always**__ been first._

**Next Chapter: Discussions on Mortality  
**_Sesshoumaru and Kagome discuss Inuyasha. Rin gets a roommate, and has an adverse reaction to one of the drugs that may require Rin to lose a limb._

**Special Thanks to: **TheRyu, Hell Chaos Angel, little-canine, Gome-chan., WhiteWolfChickie, Ru-Doragon, Azumi Kiribashi loves Sesshoumaru, Solaira, Elvin BlueEyes, InuJoey, whoa, Sesshoumaru's Love 1991, ArizonaBay, Dragonsdaughter1, aimdiscord, supersillee06, Yideungbying Kim, crazyhorsegirl3, fluffyinu94, kurai7enogu, chibi moon baby, Kagome Lady of Darkness, lindajrjt, shikonprincess15, Shiori The Lady Kazekage, magix234, xxxchocoholic, EspeonDark, and Sabre!


	6. Discussions on Mortality

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**Affliction  
**_By Miss Kagura  
_Chapter Six – Discussions on Mortality

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Somehow, Rin looked happy, Sesshoumaru realized as he watched her sleeping in the safety of his embrace. Her tiny body rose and fell with each breath he took, making her seem somehow smaller than normal. The warmth that rested on his chest was satisfying in a way he couldn't seem to articulate, even to his own animalistic mind, which had its own answer to the question that seemed to linger in the distance between Sesshoumaru and Rin. 

What was she to him?

Sesshoumaru wasn't oblivious to the fact that he obviously did not want her to die, but he didn't understand _why_ he would care about such a thing. He would care less if his own brother died, although he never really had bonded with Inuyasha. What had Rin ever done to become closer to his heart than his own flesh and blood?

In all of his life, Sesshoumaru had formed few relationships and rarely cared about anyone other than himself. All of them were easily defined; he had a father, a mother, a brother, a servant, countless enemies, former lovers (many of whom fell into the 'countless enemies' category as well), casual allies, and Rin. While Sesshoumaru was no fool, he simply could not identify the type of relationship he shared with the girl. He didn't feel like a father to her, or a brother, or a friend. He only felt like himself, and all he knew was that Rin _belonged_ with him.

The smell of poison suddenly drew his attention and he tipped his head to smell her hair, which reeked of toxicity and flowers. Despite this, there was something almost pleasurable about holding her like he was. Sesshoumaru closed his eyes and drifted into sleep.

Sesshoumaru awoke several hours later to a foul, strange smell and for a split second, he was afraid Rin had died in her sleep, although his senses immediately told him otherwise. When he sniffed the air, she smelled like rotting flesh, and it took only a few seconds to identify the source of the smell, which was a patch of black flesh on the top of Rin's hand where some of the chemotherapy entered her body through the IV needle that was still lodged in her hand. Her hand was puffy, and an odd black line went up her arm to the elbow.

He slammed his hand down on the nurse call button so hard it broke, and gently shook Rin, who drowsily opened her eyes. "Rin!"

Rin blinked slowly, and then jerked in his grasp, slowly raising her hand to her face. She screamed and tried to hold the injury, but the skin peeled off and stuck to her hand, causing puss to ooze out of the strange wound.

A large hand took hers and held it still. "What is happening to Rin?" She asked. Her voice was filled with panic and fear, causing her voice to crack as Rin fought the urge to cry.

The nurse entered and rushed to Rin's side, holding up the hand. Another nurse came in with her and put her hand over her mouth. "This one just started today. The drip must have been to slow; let's get her into surgery right away."

The nurse that reached for Rin jerked her hand back when Sesshoumaru snapped his fangs at her and growled, subconsciously reacting before he could stop himself. He took a deep breath and got out of the bed, slamming the nurse against the wall with movement far too fast to be human.

"What is this?!" Sesshoumaru growled. He had seen infection in humans before, but never in any species had he seen flesh rot off anything alive.

The nurse tried to press herself farther into the wall, trying to put some distance between herself and the growling man. "I-It's a rare reaction to one of the drugs. We need to get her into surgery immediately, or Rin could lose her entire arm." Her eyes fell to the empty sleeve at his left side. "I'm sure you understand how debilitating a lost arm is."

Rin gasped and covered her mouth, momentarily forgetting about the sharp pain in her hand and the duller, steady pain the chemo had caused. Even she knew that talking about Sesshoumaru's arm was off-limits and something that was never to be discussed. Would he kill her?

A growling snarl gave way to a quiet, thin-lipped scowl. "If Rin loses a limb, you will as well. Understood?"

"**HEEL! HEEL! HEEL!"**

_Wham! Wham! Wham!_

Kagome ran in and put one foot on Sesshoumaru's head. "Are you okay?" She asked the nurse.

The nurse shakily nodded. "Some parents just don't take things well, but we need to get Rin into surgery."

The nurses took Rin to surgery and Kagome let Sesshoumaru stand up, returning his angry glare. "Are you insane? You can't cut off someone else's arms! It's wrong!"

"And yet I _distinctly_ remember you cheering for Inuyasha when he did the same thing." Sesshoumaru said. "I believe you exact words were 'That's it, Inuyasha! Great job!' Although I was a little distracted, considering that it was my arm being cut off at the time."

Sesshoumaru turned and walked out into the hall, following Rin's scent to a pair of doors that said 'Authorized Personnel Only,' a rule the disheveled miko would enforce if necessary. In the waiting area outside surgery, he slumped down in a chair. "You came back." Sesshoumaru finally said to Kagome, who nodded slowly and at next to him. "Why?"

Kagome put her hands on her knees and stared at the shiny linoleum flooring. "Rin is being so brave about this, and…I guess I just thought that if she can put so much courage into this, the least I can do is help her, you know?"

"Not really." Sesshoumaru replied, mulling over the girl's logic as he listened for any sound that might tell him what was happening in the surgery room. "What is it like?"

"What is what like?" Kagome asked, looking into two curious amber eyes.

"Being ill." Sesshoumaru asked.

With a short, sarcastic laugh, Kagome leaned back in her chair and rested her head on the wall. "You've never been sick before? Not even once?"

Sesshoumaru shook his head.

"Well, it really sucks. On top of feeling like crap, there are always things I can't get done when I'm sick which is frustrating. It's not all bad though, I guess." Kagome said, digging around in her pocket for change. "I'm going for coffee, want some?" She smiled at his confused, apathetic expression and slowly made her way around the corner to a vending machine, which brewed two cups of black coffee, one of which she gave to Sesshoumaru when she returned to the waiting room.

Sesshoumaru took the coffee and sipped it, frowning. He forced the bitter liquid down his throat. "That is really rather disgusting."

"Inuyasha hates coffee too. I've heard it's not good for dogs anyway." Kagome said. "You know, most of the time, Inuyasha acts a lot more like a dog than you do. You kind of act like a cat most of the time, really. Like one of those panther demons."

"How insulting." The taiyoukai snorted and took another gulp of the coffee. "What did you mean when you said being sick wasn't 'all bad?'"

Kagome gave him a brief smile, remembering all the times her mother had nurtured her. "Sometimes, it's good to be able to be weak and have someone else care for me. A few months ago, I got sick and Inuyasha went to a lot of trouble to make sure I got better. Really, it's one of my best memories involving him."

Sesshoumaru digested her words, realizing the truth in them. Some part of Rin relished the attention he and others had given her since she became sick. Hours before, she had seemed so relaxed and tired and yet happy to be settled into his embrace, even after the intense episode she had endured. Holding Rin like that had felt right, and stirred up a large range of emotions he hadn't known in his long life. He wondered what would happen if he allowed himself to be weak; would it kill him? Probably. Sesshoumaru had only his own strength to rely on.

A man emerged from behind the doors in scrubs, pulling off a mask as he approached Sesshoumaru. "Are you Sesshoumaru Inutaisho?"

"Yes." Sesshoumaru replied, clutching the edge of the chair to avoid beating the doctor to death with it.

"Rin is suffering from a rare complication from Daunorubicin, one of the chemotherapy drugs administered by IV. While it's probably responsible for saving most of the people who survive a bout of her type of leukemia, it's extremely toxic and causes severe damage to any part of the body it stays in. It enters the bloodstream and disseminates fairly quickly, but Rin reacted very seriously to it." The doctor explained. "It caused severe necrosis, killing some of the tissue around the IV needle and damaging her blood vessels."

Kagome put a hand over her mouth. "Poor Rin! Is she going to be all right?"

The doctor nodded. "Rin may have limited sensitivity in her hand from now on, but the hand and arm were both savable. The fact she reacted with such results is actually probably a good sign, since it will have a similar effect on the cancer cells in her body."

Sesshoumaru drank the rest of the coffee, letting the hot, bitter substance distract him from the fact rotting flesh somehow had a positive side. The doctor went back through the doors and Sesshoumaru crushed the Styrofoam cup in his hand. "Why bother with living at all? You already know how it's going to end." He asked Kagome, who sighed and shook her head at him.

"It's not about how long humans live. It's…quality of life, I guess. Being happy." Kagome said. "I mean, there are certain things I really want to accomplish in life, and those things are way more important than how long I live."

Narrowed amber eyes seemed to stare right through her for a moment. "You are like Rin. You wish to marry and spend your life raising pathetic human brats." He said. "Although, I suppose 'human' wouldn't be the correct term in the case of your potential offspring with Inuyasha."

Kagome blushed and looked away. "That's kind of private, you know."

Neither of them spoke another word until Rin had been moved back into her room. She was sound asleep, due to some combination of drugs and exhaustion. When Sesshoumaru was talking to the doctor about Rin's reaction, another child was brought into the room.

"This is the transfer from Tokyo General." A nurse said to the doctor, who nodded and signed her clipboard. She briefly met Sesshoumaru's eyes, seemingly pretending the incident involving him threatening her had not occurred. "Henry is blind, so if you see that he needs assistance, please alert us."

Sesshoumaru looked over to the boy, who sat up in the bed and moved his head, as if looking around, even though his eyes clearly saw nothing. He reeked of death, and his shaved head and the sutures on his head explained that something was obviously wrong in his brain. Kagome, of course, had already made her way to the boy and introduced herself. "Hn." He replied, looking from the peculiar foreign boy to Rin, who was partially emerging from sleep.

"Father…" Rin whispered, opening her hand, as if waiting for someone to hold it.

Sesshoumaru gasped and extended his hand, gently lacing the tips of his fingers with hers. Was it that simple? She saw him as his father; he protected her, he cared for her life, and he wanted nothing more than to take her back to the life that made her happy.

At that moment, Sesshoumaru understood what Kagome and Rin spoke of. Even if she couldn't live forever, which was an obvious fact of life, he wanted her to be happy while she was alive and accomplish all the things she daydreamed about.

Rin's half-open eyes blinked shut and a tear rolled down her cheek. "Father…Rin is so scared."

"Shhh…it's all right." Sesshoumaru said to the girl, who awakened fully at the sound of his voice.

Rin carelessly took her hand out of his and rubbed her eyes. "For a minute, Rin was confused. I thought you were my father."

A sharp, deep frown formed on his lips as he realized Rin hadn't actually been talking to him, but to some delusion of her real father. "So did I." He said, focusing his attention on the rain falling against the window.

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**Please Review!**

_Sorry for the short chapter. My car was stolen and I've been a little busy with all that._

Author's notes: A few people have asked how I learned so much about leukemia for this fic. Research, research, and more research. Some of the drugs they pump into cancer patients are so toxic that a lot of the people who die from cancer do so because of side effects of chemotherapy, which can cause marrow infections, brain damage, massive necrosis, any type of system failure you can imagine, as well as severe damage to the nervous system.

I visited a children's hospital yesterday, and I honestly can't say there is anything more inspiring or heartbreaking than children who have the will to live when subjected to such terrible treatments. Or even adults, for that matter. It really showed me how much I take my health for granted. I plan on wrapping this story up at about ten chapters, but I think it will end up having a much more profound impact on my life than a person would expect from fanfiction.

**Next Chapter: Poison  
**Inuyasha finds and kills Naraku, who happens to have an escape route that Sesshoumaru has unknowingly protected. Unfortunately for Naraku, modern humans have a drug for everything…

Special thanks to: lilChristal, Alyssa, supersillee06, EspeonDark, Alleywolf, ArizonaBay, The Ryu, Yideungbyung Kim, Inujoey, shikonprincess15, Teela.akimako, crazyhorsegirl3, Ru-Doragon, Elvin BlueEyes, Azumi Kiribashi, lindajrjt, popcorngoo, Shiori The Lady Kazekage, mangadreams, amberwolves, and Solaira!


	7. Poison

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**Affliction  
**_By Miss Kagura  
_Chapter Seven – Poison

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Rin survived the first week of chemotherapy, which both made her sick and helped her fight the cancer that threatened her life. Much to Sesshoumaru's relief, Rin got nothing but positive reports about Rin's reaction to the drugs. However, in accordance with Dr. Yamaguchi's treatment plan, after the first week, Rin was scheduled to have the tumor removed from her back. 

The night before the surgery, Rin sat on a couch next to Sesshoumaru in the Common Room, where several other sick children were watching a movie. Sesshoumaru felt her lean on his arm, and by the time the movie was halfway over, Rin had converted his lap into a headrest.

"The Princess should simply kill the one who cursed her." Sesshoumaru commented.

A little girl sitting on the far end of the couch gasped. "Sleeping Beauty would never kill!"

Sesshoumaru arched his brows and watched the girl in amusement. "I suppose it is better that she be totally helpless, relying only on men to save her." Weren't these humans supposed to be socially advanced? Women were allowed to do everything else in this time, including becoming men, but they weren't allowed to fight back in children's 'movies?'

Minutes later, he heard Rin emit a dreamy sigh as the prince kissed Princess Aurora on the television screen.

"Rin." Sesshoumaru said. "You should know that if a man ever kisses you in your sleep, I will rip his arms off and beat him with them."

"But it's so romantic, Sesshoumaru-sama!" Rin exclaimed.

"Molestation is not romantic." Sesshoumaru replied.

The girl at the end of the couch scratched her chin. "What's molestation?"

"Ask your mother." Sesshoumaru replied as he glanced down at Rin, who was pursing her lips to avoid giggling at the taiyoukai. He saw the look in her eyes and knew he had amused her.

Rin sat up and drug her fingers through her hair, trying to straighten it out from lying on his lap. When she did, she held her hands up in front of her face in utter horror. "Sesshoumaru-sama?!" The hair tangled around her fingers had simply fallen out, and when Rin repeated the action, she only ended up with more hair in her grasp. "My hair!" The child slid off the couch and limped back to her room, sniffling.

Sesshoumaru quietly followed after her, and closed the door as she crawled into the bed. She lay on her side, with her back to him, but he could still smell her tears. "Leave me alone!" She cried. "Rin is going to be bald and ugly!" The taiyoukai sat on the edge of the bed and considered the fact that he would miss her thick brown hair.

"You are being silly, Rin." Sesshoumaru comfortingly said. "Hair is such a trivial thing."

"You wouldn't want to be bald either!" Rin whined as she rolled over onto her back, looking up at him. She was a ghost of the girl that he first met; her skin was pale, blotchy, bruised, and had bandages stuck to it where various needles had been stuck in her. The dark circles around her eyes contrasted against her skin, almost making Rin look like a raccoon. "Rin's hair was the last thing that made her feel pretty."

"It's just hair, Rin. Lifeless, pointless, and useless." Sesshoumaru said.

Rin snapped, and started crying and screaming all at once. "That's easy for you to say! It's not your hair that's falling out!" Her mouth snapped shut as Sesshoumaru's expression changed from the softened state it had been in for most of the week to something far colder and angry. "Sesshoumaru-sama…Rin did not mean to disrespect you."

Perplexed amber eyes stared out the window as a strange sensation coursed through his body, one that he could only describe as an instinctive sense of loss. Sesshoumaru had felt this once before during a lunar eclipse about 200 years ago, when his father had died. Did this mean someone else in close relation to him had fallen? Only one person could have been close enough to have caused such a reaction. "Rin, I need to leave. I may not be back before your operation."

Small hands gripped his shirt. "NO!" Rin screamed. "Don't leave Rin alone here!"

"I have no choice." Sesshoumaru calmly responded, chewing on the inside of his own mouth as he left the frightened girl alone.

Sesshoumaru hastily returned to the shrine and claimed his sword from Kagome's closet. Seconds later, he re-entered the Feudal Era, only to have his senses assaulted by a recent human massacre. Blood and death were thick on the air, and the village where Kaede lived with nothing more than smoldering ruins. Naraku's presence permeated the area, although Sesshoumaru could not sense his aura as he tracked the scent of his brother's blood.

Inuyasha's scent, along with several others from his pack, ended at the edge of a peculiar crater. Sesshoumaru knelt and lifted bloody soil to his nose, then scanned the area, his hand on Tenseiga. Wherever his brother was, he was dead or dying, judging from the rich smell of blood he left behind, probably from his liver. Had Inuyasha and Naraku gone somewhere else to finish the fight?

In the burned grass a few meters away, Sesshoumaru picked up a pink, shiny orb. Uneasiness settled in him as he realized what it meant; Naraku was dead and it was due to purification. Inuyasha hadn't finished the fight, and wasn't one to just let his little miko have all the fun. Kagome's scent, however, was nowhere in the immediate area, which made the situation even more puzzling.

He examined the jewel and noticed a tiny sliver of it was missing. A skeleton in a green-and-black taijiya uniform said the missing shard wasn't Kohaku's. There was a shard somewhere, and Naraku had probably chosen a very safe place to conceal it. One well protected…

The taiyoukai's mouth went dry as he realized exactly where the last shard was. "Rin…" Why hadn't the miko sensed it? Did the tumor somehow conceal the shard? What would happen in the morning when the tumor was cut from her body? His head jerked back in the direction of the well, knowing he couldn't get back without finding Kagome.

Long fingers combed through tall grass until Sesshoumaru found what he was looking for. He pushed it back when he found the purification arrow responsible for Naraku's demise and quickly set off into the woods in the direction that it came from.

It was an ingenious hiding place for Naraku's escape route; _everyone_ knew that injuring Rin was an invitation for violence from the taiyoukai, who would protect her at all costs. Sesshoumaru ducked between a few trees and picked up on Kagome's trail, curling his nose at a change in her scent as he considered all the steep consequences he would face if he didn't get back to Rin soon.

When he caught up to Kagome, she was cradled in the arms of the wolf prince. "Kagome."

Kagome looked up at him, her face puffy and red from crying, the bow still clutched in one hand. "S-Sesshoumaru?" She let out a relieved sob and pushed out of Kouga's arms. "Take me home!" She screamed, falling to her knees in front of him as she hugged his legs in a manner not entirely unlike the little girl he left in Tokyo. In her arms, she had something wrapped up, and she clutched this bundle to her chest with one arm as she made incoherent pleas for the taiyoukai to take her home.

Kouga took a few steps back. "Kagome, don't you want to—"

"NO!" Kagome screamed. "All I wanted…was him."

Sesshoumaru sat on his haunches and let Kagome crawl onto his back. The hand still holding on to the bow wrapped around him, holding onto his chest as Kagome sobbed onto the fabric of his shirt. The sharp, inescapable pain she felt was almost tangible in the air around her, which he unfortunately had to share with her as he raced back to the well. He pitied her as a wet spot spread over his shoulder.

The one who was supposed to make her life worth living was dead.

"Do you even care that your brother is dead?" Kagome asked, sniffling.

Sesshoumaru's head craned back and he regarded the miko carefully. "No."

"No? How can you not care? He was your brother! Can't you pretend for one day that it means something to you?" Kagome asked. Bitterness laced her voice as she held on to the taiyoukai. Seeing him near the ailing Rin had given her exposure to a side of him that wasn't entirely intolerable, but at that moment, he was the same jerk he always had been.

"That is not your concern." Sesshoumaru jumped into the well and emerged in Tokyo, just as the sun was starting to come up. He left the miko in her pink haven, and then returned to the hospital, the smell of her tears haunting him as their scent still permeated his shoulder.

The first seventy years of his life seemed like a dream to him; he never got sick, he was never injured, and the majority of his time had been spent exploring the world.

Humans, who lived about that long, providing sickness or violence does not claim them early, had miserable lives. Their bodies deteriorated too soon, they were weak, and the fleeting sense of happiness they seemed to justify all of their suffering for apparently completely abandoned some of them.

For the first time in many years, Sesshoumaru remembered the beautiful hime who left her life and future to be with his father. They were never happy. Izayoi was very nearly killed by her pregnancy and his father was constantly fending off attackers. In the end, he ended up dying for her, and she ended up following shortly after, unable to protect her pup and herself from youkai. In a tragedy that seemed incapable of stopping, the relationship did nothing but leave an orphaned hanyou, who was more miserable than either of his parents had been.

The 'dreams' Kagome and Rin spoke of were supposed to make humanity a tolerable condition of life. Why did it occasionally lead to ruin and agony? Would the miko turn into a sad shell of a woman like his father's mistress had?

The smell of the hospital brought him out of his thoughts as he carefully slipped in through Rin's window and stood on the bed, knocking a ceiling tile out of place. Sesshoumaru slipped his Tenseiga in the cavity above the room and then pushed the tile back in place. He wasn't sure what to think about the fact he had apparently unintentionally brought Naraku into Kagome's time. On one hand, there were almost no youkai to fight Naraku. On the other hand, humans had devised so many interesting ways to kill one another that he didn't doubt Naraku would have a hard time trying to assert dominance in Tokyo.

The taiyoukai pursed his lips as he noticed the dying boy that had been in Rin's room for the past week was noticeably absent. His bed was made neatly and the chart that usually hung on the foot of his bed was gone as well. He reached up toward the ceiling when a hand grabbed his foot.

"You made it back." Rin said, smiling weakly at him.

"Did Henry…?" Sesshoumaru asked.

Rin rolled over curled her legs up. "Yes."

Sesshoumaru didn't know much about the boy, but he was aware that Henry had been ill most of his life and gone through several bouts of chemotherapy before his body finally caved in to the growth in his brain. By the time Henry had been moved into Rin's room a week before, he was blind and in nearly constant pain. "He didn't want to fight anymore." Rin said. "He was tired."

He didn't know what it was like to be sick or to face death as inevitability, and it made both things seem somehow worse than they actually were. Rin's understanding and acceptance confused him. Did she accept the grim conditions of her existence to strive for the promised happiness of fulfilling her dreams?

An anesthesiologist and Dr. Yamaguchi came into Rin's room at seven that morning and put Rin into a deep sleep. Once again, Sesshoumaru wasn't allowed to go past the doors to the surgery wing, but he sat near the entrance, on alert for any sign of Naraku's aura or scent.

Three hours passed.

Sesshoumaru read a bunch of magazines, gaining a vast amount of knowledge he doubted he would ever use. If necessary, however, he could bake a low-fat quiche or drop ten pounds in a weekend. When he ran out of publications marketed to grown women, he sat and quietly mulled over the issue of human suffering. Were some humans, like Henry, simply doomed to suffer and then die? A bitter taste filled his mouth as Sesshoumaru compiled a list of things Rin had suffered through, which included watching her family be slain, having to fend for herself from about the age of four, dying twice, and nearly being killed more times than he cared to think about.

With a sharp sigh, Sesshoumaru remembered the never ending mass of people entering and exiting the hospital the first time he entered it. All of them seemed depressed and sad; was this the reason? The children's hospital was an abrasive experience that made confronting human pain necessary.

He looked up. Five hours had passed and not a peep had come from the sadistic hanyou. He started to pace across the floor, but then went back to Rin's room and retrieved Tenseiga, which he unskillfully stuffed in his shirt, tracing the scent of the dead boy who had been in the other bed only hours before. With a flick of his wrist, a metal door opened, tearing the wall just slightly where he forced the deadbolt through the doorframe.

In the next room, Sesshoumaru sensed the electronic hum of camera devices, something Kagome had _**heavily**_ lectured him about. A youki whip tore across the room and destroyed the devices in question before he flipped on the lights and walked down metal stairs into a small area nearly completely covered in metal. There was a metal table, and a strange looking cabinet on the wall that seemed to emanate the stench of death at an alarming rate. There were small doors all over the front of the cabinet, and several of them had medical charts hanging on them.

Long, hesitant fingers grasped the handle of one of the cabinet doors and pulled it open, revealing what was by far the most horrific thing about Modern Japan – a refrigerator for dead children. Sesshoumaru pulled the drawer out, and found himself staring at the tired, pale body of the peculiar foreign boy. "I have no reason to show you mercy."

Sesshoumaru pushed the drawer in and closed the door, turning his back on Henry. He knew he wouldn't regret it if he simply kept walking away. He unsheathed Tenseiga and opened the door again. Sesshoumaru pulled the drawer out again. "I have no reason _not_ to show you mercy."

With one swipe of his sword, the ashen skin turned a golden sun-kissed color, and the numerous scars on his head disappeared. The tips of the boy's fingers twitched, and his blue eyes slowly opened, scanning the room around him as he sat up. "I can see…"

Blue met gold as Sesshoumaru regarded the boy with curious eyes. Rustling sounds and several pounding heartbeats from within the cabinet alerted him to the fact Tenseiga had apparently resurrected all of the children inside. He took a few steps back. "Henry, go find a nurse. Tell no one about this, understood?"

"Are you an angel?" The boy asked.

Sesshoumaru's lips curled into a cruel smile. There he was, wicked, cold taiyoukai, standing in the basement of a hospital in the wrong time, doing someone 'good' for all the wrong reasons, all while being mistaken for some benevolent celestial being.

The door slammed shut as the demon quickly returned his sword to its hiding place in Rin's room, and then resumed the task of keeping a silent watch in the operating room's waiting area. There was still no sign of Naraku, which made Sesshoumaru wonder why the hanyou hadn't chosen to make his presence known yet. Finally, after over ten hours of waiting, Rin's doctor emerged from behind the doors.

"I'm happy to report that we were able to fully remove the tumor. Rin did very well and is recovery nicely." Dr. Yamaguchi said. "The tumor itself is very…unique. It almost ruptured during surgery, but thanks to a new form of chemotherapy that stops cell division, we were able to halt that process."

Sesshoumaru bit back a smirk. Modern humans were certainly something to behold. The one who had very nearly torn his world apart had been disarmed and stopped by an old man with a needle and a medical degree.

Just as Rin was returned to her room to recover, the hospital seemed to explode with activity. The nurse he had threatened to dismember was getting an earful in the hallway about 'checking pulses' and 'signs of actual death.' "…What the hell is wrong with you? I have a bunch of _living_ children who were put in the morgue!"

"But, he was dead!" She retorted. "And I wasn't the nurse on any of those other children. Something must have happened!"

Another doctor joined in the conversation. "She's right; believe what you want, but the Kiyomi girl died from being struck by a car. She doesn't have a scratch on her, much less a crushed abdominal cavity!"

Something walked right under his field of vision as he stared at the doctors at the end of the hallway. The door closed and his eyes fell to Henry. "I thought I recognized your voice." The boy said, realizing the one who resurrected him was the same man he had heard speak to the girl he shared the room with. "I won't tell."

"What are you doing?" Sesshoumaru asked as the boy cautiously returned to the uncomfortable, small bed.

'_Never allow yourself to be defeated in battle. Wounds may heal, but you cannot be undefeated.'_ The words of Sesshoumaru's long-dead father echoed through his mind as Henry returned to the place he was defeated and destroyed in the bitter struggle for his own life. The poison of that defeat still lingered in his soul, even though his body was healed.

"Yes." Sesshoumaru's icy voice pierced the silence in the room. "The answer to your question…is yes."

"You're an angel? Why did you bring me back?" Henry asked.

"I resurrected you because you do not belong here. Leave, and don't ever come back." Sesshoumaru said, his voice steady and cold as he emotionally nudged the boy off his deathbed with a lie about his own identity.

Taking the words of his 'angel' to heart, Henry slid out from between the sheets and took one look over his shoulder, one last glance at the taiyoukai. The last thought he had as he left the room for the final time was that Rin have been a very special girl to have her very own guardian angel.

A few minutes later, Rin slowly woke up. "Is it over?"

"Yes, you've been asleep all day. It went well." Sesshoumaru said.

"Were you bored, having to wait on Rin?" Rin asked, casually reaching for the hand that had offered her so much comfort during the worst week of her life.

Sesshoumaru shrugged. "It wasn't quite as boring as you think." He softly replied.

Rin raked her fingers over her pillow, collecting the hair left behind. "Rin doesn't want to be ugly." The tone of her voice told him she didn't want to hear that losing her hair wouldn't make her less attractive. She felt almost lonely in her suffering, even though Sesshoumaru had been by her side nearly constantly since she was brought to the hospital.

Several hours later, in the Higurashi house, Kagome finally came out of her room for a glass of water. She was standing in the kitchen when she heard a local news anchor on the living room television.

"…_Several children at the Tokyo Children's Health Center reportedly came back from the dead, according to one nurse. Representatives say no such thing occurred, and that the nurse in question is suffering from mental illness. Staff incompetency is being blamed for living children being placed in the hospital's morgue…"_

The glass in her hand broke when it hit the floor. Sesshoumaru had used his Tenseiga! The initial fear that they would be found out as she remembered how utterly ridiculous it sounded to think someone might suspect a dog youkai with a sword was sauntering around the hospital, resurrecting the dead. She cleaned up the mess, wondering what drove the merciless, heartless taiyoukai to use the sword.

When Kagome went back upstairs, she saw the demon in question enter her bathroom wearing a robe. He had obviously just showered. "H-how is Rin?"

"Better. Sleeping." He replied as he picked up something in his hand. An electronic buzz filled the room as she realized what it was he held. The look in his eyes was deeper than Kagome had ever seen, and his expression was almost foreign. He swept the electric razor over his scalp, and ignored the beautiful silver locks that fell at his feet.

"Rin's hair is falling out, isn't it?" Kagome asked.

The heartbroken miko watched with tears rolling down her cheeks. She felt like she was watching Sesshoumaru break in slow motion, shedding the vanity and cruelty and apathy like the locks that cascaded to the floor. "_She _is the one that makes my life worth living."

Absolutely heartless in battle.

Utterly merciless at all times.

Completely devoted to one little human girl.

"You could use the jewel to wish her better." Kagome finally said.

Fiery amber eyes met hers. He had already retrieved the shard from the tumor and considered this possibility. "I already made a wish." The door closed in Kagome's face suddenly, and she returned to her room and lay down on the bed. She heard something behind her and sat up.

"Inuyasha?!"

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**Please Review!**

**Next Chapter: Father  
**Rin and Sesshoumaru have fluffy moments that lead to the conversation. Rin is still ill, despite the death of Naraku and the removal of her tumor. As she fights the leukemia, her doctor tells Sesshoumaru only a bone marrow transplant will save her…

_Author's Note: Apparently, the easiest way to make people stop reviewing is to announce you're not writing a romance. Oh well._

**Special thanks to:** lilChristal, darlingloversx, lindajrjt, oldestmaiden, Elvin BlueEyes, InuJoey, Shiori The Lady Kazekage, shikonprincess15, ArizonaBay, Yideungbyung Kim, amberwolves, mangadreams, Camille H., TwilightVampire15, Queen of the Nymphs, and EspeonDark!


	8. Father

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**Affliction**  
_By Miss Kagura  
_Chapter Eight – Father

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Rin opened her eyes and stretched, feeling surprisingly comfortable after the surgery. She looked to the chair where Sesshoumaru was always sitting, and there, occupying _his_ chair was someone else. Someone who looked like the youki lord she had diligently followed, although this man was most certainly bald. "Sesshoumaru-sama?!" She softly called out.

Gentle amber eyes watched the girl's reaction carefully. "As I said before, hair is highly overrated." He held up the razor in suggestion. "The lack of hair does not tangle, does not have to be washed, and will not become frizzy in humid weather."

"Sesshoumaru-sama?" Rin said innocently said. "You look silly."

"Care to join me?" Sesshoumaru asked. "It really is pointless to simply wait for it all to fall out."

Rin winced as she sat up, reminded of her operation by a sharp pain on her back. A tiny hand reached out for Sesshoumaru. "Can I touch it?" With a sad sigh, Sesshoumaru tipped his bald head over, offering it to the curious hands of his little Rin. He didn't fail to notice she suddenly seemed out of breath after a few seconds of rubbing the smooth skin, but he certainly wouldn't mention such a thing.

Rin settled back down and frowned. "Rin will let you cut off my hair, but only if you help me make a bubble bath."

Was Rin actually making demands of him? His eyes narrowed suspiciously and wondered if Rin had been possessed. "You should know that making deals with this Sesshoumaru can be very dangerous." He said, resisting the urge to smirk at the girl's audacious behavior. "Even deadly."

The little girl snorted and giggled. "Rin knows you're only teasing, Sesshoumaru-sama!"

Once, Rin had been his shadow, following him in silence or babbling things he never listened to. Now, they were rarely totally silent when she was awake. Her childish chatter was actually far more intelligent than Sesshoumaru had credited her for, and it exposed a much more vibrant and bold personality than he had expected. It made sense that Rin be as brave as she was; if she wasn't, she would have fled from him at their first meeting.

Sesshoumaru hated the fact she was ill, hated the idea of her suffering, and wanted her to get better as soon as possible, but at the same time, the entire ordeal was teaching him to appreciate her. Watching her cry forced him to realize how many smiles he had taken for granted, and face the fact that even if she survived this, there were still a very limited number of smiles she had left to give. Rin was mortal; it was inevitable that someday she would be gone.

"I accept the terms of your agreement." Sesshoumaru replied, surprised at how easily it actually was to casually tease the girl. It _always_ amused her. As he ran warm water in the bathtub of the tiny bathroom, he looked over his shoulder to see Rin watching him with a rather adoring expression.

Rin smiled at him, lacking the courage to say what she really wanted to at that moment. She wasn't ignorant to what Sesshoumaru had sacrificed to help her live. Without showing any sign of regret, he walked away from hunting Naraku, and gave up his time, his comfort, and a great deal of his pride. The untouchable youkai lord had done all these things for her.

As Rin slowly walked to Sesshoumaru, she wondered how many things she never would have been able to do if she hadn't become so ill. Would he ever have cradled her? Held her hand? Done something silly to make her smile? Chosen to suffer the horrors of baldness with her?

The taiyoukai sensed the girl approaching him, and was unsure of what she was about to do. As he knelt next to the bathtub, two arms wrapped around his neck in what he would have believed to be a chokehold from anyone else. Rin's cheek pressed into his as her head popped over his shoulder, and when he turned, Sesshoumaru was nose-to-nose with Rin.

"Thank you, Sesshoumaru-sama." Rin lightly whispered as she turned and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

Having stepped far past boundaries, Rin tried to take a step back, but found long skinny fingers wrapped around the arms that held Sesshoumaru. He didn't say anything, or express that he enjoyed or hated what she had done other than prevent her from letting go of him.

Did Sesshoumaru sometimes need a hug too?

Sesshoumaru felt the child relax and rest her cheek against his, both staring at the bubbly water filling the tub. He was there for her, and yet he was the one getting comfort from the one who seemingly had no comfort to give. If this moment had taken place a few weeks before, he would have pried her off him and admonished her for latching on to him as she had. It wouldn't have felt right, and it wouldn't have been deserved. Only her suffering made him need a hug, and only taking care of her made him feel it was right to accept it. Accept and…enjoy.

Finally, he turned and sat Rin on the edge of the counter, and then took the razor in one hand. "It won't hurt."

What had been a beautiful, sloppy, bushy mop was soon a pile of loose hair. How many times had he seen it tangled with flowers and grass? How many times did he see the sun shine off it? Careful fingers reached up for the ribbon on one side of her head and Rin closed her eyes, clearly fighting tears. "When did you start doing this to your hair?" He asked, attempting to distract her as he pulled the ribbon, letting the hair fall.

"When Rin lived alone. I wanted to make my hair look pretty." Rin answered.

That, at least, made sense. He had never seen an adult do such an odd thing with hair, but the lopsided ponytail was as much Rin's as the flowers she picked. "It always pleased me." He commented, realizing that should have been said before her hair had to be shaved off, not while he was doing it.

When it was over, Rin turned and looked at the mirror, rubbing her head. "Rin looks ridiculous."

"So does this Sesshoumaru." Sesshoumaru replied, helping her off the counter onto the floor, where she shed her clothes and sank under the bubbles. Two waterproof bandages on each side of her back were all she had to show from her surgery, which amazed Sesshoumaru. The skin between them was a little red, and her spine was bruised, but that seemed minimal compared to what he expected, which was tons of sutures and a lot of scar tissue. It explained why Rin's 'tumor' was hardly anything more than a jar of expertly diced flesh when he stole it to retrieve the last Shikon shard.

He took a clean rag and dipped it under the water, then squeezed bath gel onto it. "Head up." Rin looked at him in surprise and tilted her head; she hadn't expected him to help her bathe. A careful, gentle hand guided the soapy rag over her smooth head and neck, and then returned to her ears. "Rin doesn't like having her ears cleaned."

"I hated it when my mother cleaned my ears. There is something unnatural about someone else putting things inside my ears that I dislike greatly." Sesshoumaru said, realizing youkai and human children apparently had a lot in common. He finished bathing her, then helped her dry off. It felt strangely natural to interact with the girl in such a way, although Sesshoumaru knew much of his ease came from the fact he was worried she'd slip and fall or get tired too easily if he didn't aid her.

After dressing Rin in a fluffy robe, he helped her get back to her bed. Then, he went to Dr. Yamaguchi's office for an appointment he was almost late for. He had been staring out the window for a moment or so when the old doctor came in. The look on the doctor's face was grim. "When Rin was under anesthetic, we took bone marrow samples to check on her progress. I'm afraid I have some bad news."

In the five seconds in between the end of that sentence and the beginning of the next, the world just seemed to stop. He knew he was probably the most powerful living creature of Kagome's time, and yet he was utterly powerless to save the one thing he couldn't part with from whatever Dr. Yamaguchi was about to say.

"The tumor on her back responded well to chemotherapy, but the efforts to stop the growth of cancer cells in Rin's bone marrow have been nearly completely ineffective." The old doctor said. "I am recommending a change in her treatment regiment, although the drugs that she hasn't responded well to are the most effective in killing her form of leukemia."

The doctor pushed a folder across the desk. "There are other factors that we must consider when determining the correct course of action with each patient. One of them is chemotherapy. The second factor is stem cell transplant from bone marrow. Unfortunately, Rin has no match. I can recommend a transplant using the marrow from someone with the closest match, but it would probably not work."

"What you're saying is…" Sesshoumaru's eyes were cold, his face was even. "She's dying." His claws dug farther into the palm of his hand. "And there is nothing you can do about it." He opened the folder, which contained a thin book about coping with death and several pamphlets about experimental treatments. He ignored the blood dripping on them as he carefully tucked them back in the folder. He politely pushed the folder across the desk, and then stood. "How long?"

"Three to four weeks, without any treatment at all." Dr. Yamaguchi said. "Her type – AML – is extremely aggressive. The decline will be quick, and pain medication can take the edge off."

"I am taking her home." He said, turning away from the doctor. Defeat coursed through his veins like the cancer in Rin's blood. It made the walk back to her room seem to take forever. What would he tell her? Should he lie? Could he tell her the truth? Sesshoumaru thought about the other things offered, poisons and procedures that would only lead to a more horrific death, and he couldn't imagine driving Rin to such a point.

Sesshoumaru cracked the door open and watched Rin playing with her doll on the bed. It had seemed strange before, watching her act out maternal instincts, but now it was sick, sad and wrong.

It wasn't supposed to be like that.

He pushed the door open and Rin looked up. Rin looked at his bleeding hand, the look in his eyes, and the fact his lips were pursed so tightly they had seemingly disappeared. "Bad news." She softly said. "Rin is dying again?"

The taiyoukai nodded. "I am sorry, Rin." He said, shocked at the way his body was behaving. A strange, sharp pain in his throat made it almost impossible to speak, as if he'd swallowed a ball. His chest felt tight and even breathing steadily was difficult.

Rin looked down at the doll in her lap. Suddenly, the game of pretend was over, and it was just a doll again. It was plastic, fake, and cold; she felt like her dreams were dissolving in front of her very eyes. It represented all the things she would never have because she was never going to grow up. Rin threw the doll, which hit the trashcan with a loud clang.

Sesshoumaru sat on the edge of the bed, unsure of what could possibly be the right thing to say. "I do not wish to have this conversation right now."

"Neither does Rin." Rin said in a shaky voice.

"Would you like to go somewhere?" Sesshoumaru asked. "Somewhere where there is something else to think about."

Rin nodded and let him help her get dressed. They didn't say a single word as Sesshoumaru leapt from building to building, with Rin perched on his back.

Rin felt relieved and disgusted with herself all at once. There would be no more chemotherapy, no more needles, and no more metal tables. The question of whether or not everything was worth it had already been answered; she was going to die. The relief was eclipsed by disgust with herself and Sesshoumaru. Her life was over and he had chosen the last few weeks to treat her the way he wanted him to treat her the entire time she followed him. Rin was equally mad that she was now going to leave him alone, now that she really, really meant something to him.

She saw a line of people, which Sesshoumaru leapt over, no more than a streak to those below. He landed nonchalantly at the edge of a fence and Rin looked to the other side. "What is that?!" Rin exclaimed with a gasp.

"I have no idea." Sesshoumaru said, reading the plaque on the edge of the fence. "It's called a kangaroo, and according to this, they have a pouch they carry their young in." He sensed the girl looking all around. "This place is called a zoo. They have animals here from all over the world." Sesshoumaru had learned about the zoo after his confrontation with the giraffe statue at Toys 'R Us. After hearing they were the tallest mammals, he asked a checkout boy where one would hunt giraffes, and was told about the zoo.

Sesshoumaru walked to the next exhibit over, and Rin peeked over his shoulder. "I don't see anything…" She said. Just then, a crocodile snapped its mouth open in an attempt to capture a bird at the edge of the water. Rin jumped and screamed, holding onto Sesshoumaru.

The next exhibit held several dingoes, which all ran to the fence near Sesshoumaru and started barking. "What big dogs!"

A slight grunt from Sesshoumaru and a few steps later, they found themselves looking at yet even more silly looking animals neither of them had ever seen. "This…platypus…may be the most idiotic looking thing I have ever laid eyes on." Sesshoumaru said.

"Rin thinks it's cute!" Rin exclaimed, trying to absorb all she saw.

That day, Rin had ice cream for the first time. And hot dogs, pizza, potato chips, chocolate, French fries, and soda. Then, she learned what indigestion was, and about how a full tummy will empty itself when pushed to such limits. They laughed at animals, and ate junk food, neither of them saying even a word about the emotional issue that threatened to break both of them.

After only a few hours, Sesshoumaru realized her body just wasn't up for very much, unlike the numerous human children running around endlessly, pointing and yelling at the animals. She barely moved at all, and he carried her the entire time. "Rin is tired." She finally said tucking her head against him as if to sleep. Sesshoumaru sat on a bench, watching the sunset behind two towering giraffes as Rin rested in a half-asleep daze in his lap. A few minutes later, a strange animal cry seemed to awaken Rin, but her face stayed buried against his chest.

Tiny fists clenched his shirt desperately as the smell of salt filled the air. "Why?" She cried out against him. "Why did you wait until now to care about Rin? Rin has no time left!"

"Rin, stop." Sesshoumaru said as he stroked her back, carefully avoiding her wounds. "No good can come from this."

It was as if she surrendered immediately, going limp in his embrace. She was quiet for a few minutes, and then spoke again. "Sometimes, Rin misses her mother." She calmly said. "But Rin never misses her father anymore. I stopped crying for him a long time ago. He was good to Rin. He made sure I always did his best to protect us."

"He was lucky to have you as a daughter." Sesshoumaru replied.

Soft brown eyes met his in complete honesty. "I felt guilty when I stopped missing Father. When I stopped feeling like I needed him."

Sesshoumaru felt his mouth go dry, realizing exactly where the conversation was going. He could have changed the subject, or asked the wrong question, but everything in him wanted to see the issue through. "And when was that?"

The wads of his clothing tangled in her fingers were shaking as Rin broke eye contact. "Rin stopped missing her father when you started taking care of me." She sniffled and met his eyes again. "…Because….because I like to pretend you are my father now."

Rin felt a clawed hand pull her closer. "It would only be necessary to pretend something that is not real, and this is the most real thing I have ever felt." He whispered.

"Father…" Rin slowly said in a voice that was more like singing than anything else.

She held on tight to him, long after she had fallen asleep. Sesshoumaru returned to the Higurashi house and put her to bed in Kagome's room. What was he going to do? Some part of Sesshoumaru just wanted to kill everything in the area until nothing was left alive, although that would obviously do nothing to help Rin. It was so ironically cruel that he could kill or resurrect anyone else on the planet except the one person he couldn't stand to lose.

Keiko Higurashi, Kagome's mother, found him standing in the hallway, looking as if he had no idea where he was supposed to go. She knew exactly how Sesshoumaru felt, having gone through the same thing a few years before. "Come have tea with me." She said.

Sesshoumaru followed her downstairs and waited quietly she prepared the tea, and then served it to him. "Dr. Yamaguchi called here since you listed Kagome as Rin's other legal guardian. She told me." She said, sitting across from him. "A few years ago, I got to sit in that chair across from a doctor, hearing that the one I loved was going to die far too young. I'm sure you've realized Kagome and Souta have no father here."

"Why does this concern me?" Sesshoumaru asked.

"Because I think you should know what it's going to be like." Keiko said. She took his silence as an indication that she should continue. "Well, first, Rin is going to get much, much more ill, and when her body can't take anymore, she'll die. But, that's really just the beginning. At first, I tried to stay strong for the children and not let it get to me, but one day, I just broke." Tears lined her eyes, but she ignored them. "It never stops hurting. Someday, years from now, you'll be doing something, and you'll wonder what she would look like now."

The phone rang and Keiko picked up the handset on the table, checking the Caller's ID. "It's the hospital." She said, turning the phone on as she passed it to him.

"Hello." Sesshoumaru said.

"_Hello, this is Dr. Yamaguchi, Mr. Inutaisho. I have some great news to report! We have a donor!"_ The voice on the other end offered Sesshoumaru hope after a devastatingly brutal day. He bit, knowing it might just lead to another dead end.

"How soon could the transplant be performed?" Sesshoumaru asked.

Dr. Yamaguchi scratched his chin. _"Let's see, you'll have to talk to the donor…come in tomorrow morning and readmit Rin. I was surprised to see them come in to check if Ms. Higurashi was compatible, and the chances of finding a match like that are so close to nothing."_

The doctor hung up and Sesshoumaru stared at the phone for a moment.

Hope.

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**Please Review!**

**Next Chapter:** Mercy

In the interest of not ruining the plot, I won't say much about this chapter. There's a major plot twist coming in the second to last chapter!

**Special Thanks to: **Carmen, Brittney, Shichigo, crazyhorsegirl3, oldestmaiden, Teela.akimako, Wolf-Inu-Yasha38, chibi moon baby, ArizonaBay, aimdiscord, Inujoey, Elvin BlueEyes, Hikaru and Shikon, BabyBri57, come-by-chance, lindajrjt, kurai7enogu, Unseelie Sidhe, metalcherry, Sesshieluver89, supersillee06, Wudelfin, and Yideungbyung Kim.


	9. Mercy

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**Affliction**  
_By Miss Kagura  
_Chapter Nine – Mercy

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Despite the hour, Sesshoumaru traced Kagome's scent to the well house. He entered and found the miko pinned up against the wall by his brother, who was giving her a very lusty kiss. "AHEM." He said, immediately breaking up the make-out session. It was obvious, even to Sesshoumaru, that Inuyasha's death and return to life had broken through all the things that stood between the miko and his brother. He had no desire to interfere or become entrenched in their personal affairs, especially when they were coping with the loss of their allies in what Sesshoumaru felt to be a rather strange manner. 

"Kagome, Dr. Yamaguchi called. You are a match." Sesshoumaru said. Kagome smiled and walked over to him, giving him a hug. "Be courteous of my superior senses and refrain from touching me at times when you reek of my brother's seed." He said as he pushed her off with complete disgust.

Kagome withered under his glare; her skin turned white, her face turned red, and she couldn't make herself look at him. Inuyasha was equally embarrassed, but also a little pissed off that they had been interrupted. Kagome was, as usual, going the extra mile to help others, and Sesshoumaru felt his wish to resurrect his brother was the correct thing to do. Had he simply wished Rin well, then Kagome would have been miserable, and he felt oddly compelled to ensure that didn't happen.

In other words, Sesshoumaru's mercy to the heartbroken miko had created a way to save both Inuyasha and Rin. He knew from her general attitude that she thought his actions were motivated by some weird sense of sibling obligation, although had that been true, nothing would have worked.

Only an unselfish wish would have brought his brother back without a curse and if Sesshoumaru had even the slightest amount of compassion or preference that his brother lived, it wouldn't have been an unselfish wish at all. It would have been as selfish as wishing Rin well, since Sesshoumaru obviously wanted her to be in the world. It is not selfless to ask for something that brings joy to his life.

The taiyoukai returned to his place at Rin's side and watched her sleep, wondering if how much time Rin would linger on the earth. A month? A year? Sixty years? His mind drifted back to what Dr. Yamaguchi had told him and Kagome at their first meeting; even if Rin lived, she would need periodic treatment and would likely be dependent on drugs for the rest of her life. Sesshoumaru wasn't about to bet Rin's safety on being taxied through the well, which meant she had to stay in Modern Tokyo. At the same time, he knew that he did not want to part with Rin.

Sesshoumaru wanted to see an infinite number of smiles, and no matter how the situation of her sickness played out, he would going to lose that if he went home and left Rin. Could he stay in the future, removed from the world he had lived in? There were so many things he missed. He missed seeing a sky full of stars; only the brightest stars shined through Tokyo's artificial lighting. The gentle sound of wind blowing through grass had been replaced by honking cars and radios. No, he hated the world humans built for themselves, but hadn't failed to notice how comfortable Rin seemed in it.

He knew he didn't belong in Kagome's world. There was another time and another place on the other side of that well where Sesshoumaru's presence was considered a necessary evil, slowly preparing the world for human domination. For every taiyoukai and youkai he had slain to become powerful, he made it just a little easier for humans to survive.

Sesshoumaru knew he had an obligation to go back and continue on his quest for greatness, even though it was clear that his empire was never established. Or, perhaps it wasn't established because he didn't go back? He wondered if there was no sign of him because he went to the future and stayed with Rin, and then shook the entire dilemma free from his mind when he mentally stumbled on time travel complexities.

One fact remained unchanged; Sesshoumaru and Rin were equally opposed to being parted.

With a sigh of frustration, Sesshoumaru opened the window and let the thick, polluted air blow into the room. "Damn that smile." He whispered to himself as he looked over his shoulder at the sleeping girl. He left, carrying out a plan that he believed would bring a smile to Rin's face.

When the next morning came, Kagome woke up before everyone else and carefully crept to the bathroom, hoping to avoid waking anyone else up before she had the first shower. She hated having the shower run cold halfway through because there was no hot water left.

She undressed, pulled the shower curtain back, and stepped into the bathtub, surprised to find it had several inches of water in it. With a quick tug on the drain, the water slowly disappeared. Kagome turned on the water, and washed her face, then her body and hair. She was rinsing conditioner out of her hair when she felt something furry touch her leg.

Kagome jumped, slipping on hair conditioner. She landed in the bathtub and flailed around for a few minutes as she tried to stand up. Then, she took a deep breath and forced herself to calm down. It wasn't so scary once she figured out what it was.

There, on the other side of the bathtub, was a platypus.

Kagome sighed. "…And here I am, naked in a bathtub with a platypus at six in the morning." She calmly stood up, turned the shower back on, and finished rinsing her hair out. "You know, I bet there's an explanation for this." Kagome said to the animal as she stepped out of the bathtub. "I mean, no one in my family would put a platypus in the bathtub, and I suspect one of two men from that _other_ family is responsible. Have you had any recent encounters with youkai lords or disgruntled hanyou?"

The platypus slapped its tail on the bottom of the bathtub and Kagome frowned. "Fine, don't talk to me."

She slipped her robe on and walked slowly to the guest room, where she had slept with Inuyasha. With a nudge, Inuyasha's eyes opened just slightly. "Platypus." Kagome said, offering no explanation or accusation.

"What the fuck does that mean?" Inuyasha asked, confirming her suspicion that Inuyasha didn't know what a platypus was and thus probably didn't have a reason to put one in the bathtub.

"It means…HEEL! HEEL! HEEL!" Kagome yelled, loud enough for Sesshoumaru to hear. Three slamming noises shook the house as she stomped to her room, where the taiyoukai lay on the floor. "Care to explain why there was a **platypus in my bathtub**?"

"It is a gift for Rin." Sesshoumaru replied.

Kagome saw a little booklet from the zoo sitting on her dresser. "Take it back! You can't steal wild animals from the zoo. Besides that, I'm fairly sure the platypus's natural habitat isn't bathtub."

Not in the mood to argue and sure he would lose anyway, Sesshoumaru stalked down the hall toward the bathroom.

The rest of the morning went almost smoothly, and at noon, Sesshoumaru and Rin met Kagome and Inuyasha at the hospital. A nurse showed them into a small exam room, which felt a little cramped. After a few minutes, Dr. Yamaguchi came in with a smile. "Hello Rin, nice to see you!"

Rin didn't answer the man she simply identified as her tormentor.

The old doctor continued. "You're a very lucky girl, finding a match by chance in someone you know." He pushed a clipboard over to Kagome and Inuyasha. "I need the donor to sign those."

Kagome reached out and the doctor stopped. "The donor."

"I am the donor." Kagome replied.

Dr. Yamaguchi frowned. "But you're not the match. _He_ is." The doctor pointed at Inuyasha, and Sesshoumaru slammed his fist through a plastic chair. "Is that a problem?"

"Leave us." Sesshoumaru barked at the doctor, who left in a panicked hurry, unsure of what had just happened.

Rin frowned as she thought about what had just been said. The person who could save her life was a half-demon. Did that mean the surgery couldn't be done? Would she die? Would his bone marrow kill her? "Rin doesn't understand."

Sesshoumaru regretted his attempts to grasp onto hope. He grabbed one of Kagome's hands and put it over one of Rin's ears, then repeated the action with her other hand, covering Rin's ears. "We already know youki will poison her. I highly doubt Naraku intended to make his escape route ill."

Sesshoumaru thought back to when he first met Rin, and realized that Inuyasha's mother came from the same geographical area. In that era, people rarely married outside of their locality, so the 'gene pool' he had learned about would be far less diverse than it would be in present day. Rin and Inuyasha could easily have been distant relatives.

Inuyasha slumped down in a chair. "Look, I only took the test yesterday because Kagome was being a coward about hers. I don't want to kill the kid with my…whatever it is."

"Bone marrow." Kagome said.

"If there was any other way to help, I would." Inuyasha said. "Wait if we waited until the new moon?"

Sesshoumaru blankly stared into space. "That is three weeks away. Rin will likely be dead before that."

Kagome suddenly got an idea. "You know, when Inuyasha walked through the barrier at Mt. Hakkurei, it turned him into a human. If I purified the marrow before the transplant, it would just be human and normal."

Inuyasha opened the door from his chair beside it, and barked at the doctor. "Hey, get back in here!"

Dr. Yamaguchi entered again. "Is there something wrong?" He asked.

"No. Before the transplant, the marrow will undergo purification in accordance with our religious beliefs." Sesshoumaru informed him.

"Very good." Dr. Yamaguchi said, turning to the hanyou. "Have you eaten today?"

Inuyasha thought for a minute. "No."

"Good! I'll contact the anesthesiologist." He replied.

Half an hour later and two floors up, one very unlucky nurse was getting a headache. "I ain't putting that on! It's a dress! Without an ass!" He said of the backless gown that was presented to him.

Kagome sighed. "C'mon, Inuyasha, just put it on. Don't make me dress you."

With that, the hanyou sighed and disappeared behind a screen, emerging a few minutes later in the gown. His hands were crossed behind his back, holding the back closed. "Keh, at least I don't look like an albino peach." He said, referring to the fuzz on Sesshoumaru's head that was already growing back.

Sesshoumaru ignored him and left the room with Kagome to check in on Rin, who was being readmitted to the hospital. Her new medicine regiment involved a handful of pills to suppress her immune system, which would make her body less likely to reject Inuyasha's marrow transplant. According to a stack of papers he was forced to sign, they would also render her body nearly completely incapable of fighting infection and sickness. Those attending schools or other places where communicable disease spread easily were a major danger to her.

The transplant would take place the next afternoon, giving the drugs just enough time to take effect without wasting precious time. Sesshoumaru could knew there was a point that Rin's disease would become impossible to stop, and Dr. Yamaguchi made it clear with his haste that he believed that point was coming very soon.

The willingness his brother showed to help Rin astounded him. All his life, Sesshoumaru believed cruelty and malice to be contagious forms of malevolence, but his recent experiences suggested kindness and mercy just as easily spread to others. Kagome took the first step with her offer to help Rin. Then, he had helped her by resurrecting Inuyasha with the jewel. Now, Inuyasha was ready to help save Rin's life.

Sesshoumaru realized the mercy he showed his brother might have saved Rin's life.

If anything had happened different, they all would have been screwed. Inuyasha and Rin would be dead, and Sesshoumaru and Kagome would be left behind. Sesshoumaru was beginning to feel his brother and the miko were similar to him and Rin in that they weren't supposed to be separated -- not by the well, not by time, and most certainly not death. Obviously, Rin's case was different because she had to leave him eventually and get married, although Sesshoumaru wasn't quite ready to think about that yet.

"Rin doesn't like taking pills." Rin randomly commented.

Sesshoumaru gave her a soft smile. "I can imagine. I usually prefer chewing things before swallowing them."

Rin was quiet for a moment. "Sesshoumaru-sama, if Rin dies, are you going to be sad?"

"That is a silly question." Sesshoumaru replied. "You are not going to die."

"If I do though, you shouldn't be sad. Rin doesn't want you to be sad." Rin said. Tiny fingers reached for his hand. "Rin doesn't want you to be alone."

Sesshoumaru stared into her big brown eyes and fought the strong urge to start begging Rin to stop speaking. She wasn't supposed to be mature, and she wasn't supposed to be selfless enough to say the words that hung on the end of her tongue. She wasn't supposed to understand that if she died, it would break his heart.

Still, she continued. "There are a lot of children who need someone to follow. Maybe you could let one of them could be as lucky as Rin someday."

The part of him that was ready to go mad wanted to laugh. Rin thought she was lucky? "Rin, 'one of them' could never be you."

An hour later, Kagome came by to inform them that Inuyasha's procedure had gone well, other than the fact he required more anesthesia than a horse. A thankful brother left Rin's side to speak to him, with something hidden under his shirt. As expected, Inuyasha was sound asleep. Sesshoumaru pulled something out from under his clothing.

"_Keh, at least I don't look like an albino peach."_

Sesshoumaru turned the razor on and began to shave Inuyasha's head in no particular pattern. Rin would laugh, and it was a satisfying act. About halfway through, the razor suddenly stopped working and Sesshoumaru realized the battery had finally run down. Inuyasha's head had random patches of long hair here and there, interrupted by large bald spots. He put the razor away and returned to Rin's side, as if nothing had happened.

* * *

**The Next Day**

Sesshoumaru rubbed his black eye as Kagome sat on the floor of an exam room with a bunch of candles and several glass vials of liquid bone marrow. The candles were really just for effect, and to convince Dr. Yamaguchi that what was going on in the room was a legitimate religious ceremony. His skin began to sting as Kagome flared out her aura, centering her purification energy around her hands, which moved from one vial to another, purifying Inuyasha's youki. Soon, the traces of Inuyasha's scent smelled completely human to his sensitive nose. Kagome gave the vials one last pass and Sesshoumaru nodded, indicating he could no longer sense Inuyasha's youki in the room.

He unlocked the door and Dr. Yamaguchi entered. "If this transplant goes well, a few more weeks of chemotherapy could put Rin in long-term, if not permanent, remission. She'll still need to spend a little more time here, especially if her immune system has to be kept under long-term repression."

The taiyoukai sighed at the doctor's words, wondering if the nightmare was ever going to end. She could get better in a few as six weeks, or six months, or even never. Even if she did make a recovery, there was almost a guarantee that the leukemia would eventually come back. From the literature Sesshoumaru read, the second bout was almost always deadly. Almost nothing works the second time around, even bone marrow transplants and chemotherapy.

When he got back to Rin's room, he was more than a little upset that she had already been sedated, since he had expected to have a chance to speak to her beforehand. Fortunately, Sesshoumaru was too nervous to act out his anger, and was soon sitting in the waiting room with Kagome and a bald hanyou, who was forced to shave his head after Sesshoumaru's impromptu haircut.

Sesshoumaru tuned his ears to the sound of Rin's heartbeat, which was going slower than usual due to the anesthesia. He focused on that as he waited. His mind amplified the slight thumping until it was all he could hear. It was the only thing the taiyoukai cared to hear, and multiple attempts from Kagome to start a conversation went completely unheeded.

About half an hour later, another doctor ran down the hall and through the doors. He knew Rin was the only child in surgery at that moment, and he took note of the doctor's name as he passed. Sesshoumaru looked up to a plaque on the wall.

_Taro Takahashi – Neurosurgeon _

"Kagome, what is a neurosurgeon?" Sesshoumaru asked.

Kagome looked at the plaque Sesshoumaru was staring at. "It's someone who does surgery on the brain. Why?"

The gentle thumping his ears were fixed on started to throb and race erratically as Rin's heart rate fluctuated. "Something is wrong." Sesshoumaru said as his claws tightened around the arm of the chair.

Suddenly, the smell of Inuyasha's youki hit his nose, coming from Rin's direction. Sesshoumaru felt his own heart start to race as he tried to figure out why Inuyasha's youki would be coming out of the room after it had been purified. Perhaps blood and youki were both made in the marrow? These 'stem cells' that told the body how to make blood could probably be the same source of youki.

"Shit." Inuyasha said as he sensed what his brother did.

Sesshoumaru heard Rin's heart speed up to insane speeds for a few seconds, and then stop.

In the operating room, a slew of doctors and nurses were trying to figure out what was happening in Rin's body. In most cases, the rejection became apparent due to an immune system reaction, but Rin's entire body seemed to be out of control. Despite the anesthesia, her limbs seemed to be in a constant state of seizure. Several more rounds of muscle relaxants were injected into Rin.

"Is the cause of her seizures neurological?" Dr. Yamaguchi asked.

The neurologist, Dr. Takahashi, shrugged. "I can't tell. I've never seen anything like this before. The back of her cranium is starting to show signs of minor cerebral hemorrhage; we need to prep the area for surgery."

Another doctor responded to Rin's cardiac arrest with a shock from the defibrillator. Her heart started to beat again, returning to its strange, out-of-control pattern.

Six hours later, Dr. Yamaguchi emerged from what should have been a one-hour procedure. Sesshoumaru wasn't in the waiting room, and the two who had accompanied him had fallen asleep. The surgery had been an utter failure, and what he had seen was unlike any other reaction he'd seen in any of his patients or any case he had read about. Her body seemed to reject the bone marrow from Inuyasha in a very extreme manner.

The neurologist tried to perform surgery to relieve swelling in her cranial cavity, only to discover Rin had a massive aneurism. The brain surgeon had only seen such a strange phenomenon once before in his career, and that was on a patient who had been struck by lightning.

Despite their efforts, the brain damage alone was enough to ensure Rin wasn't going to recover. An electroencephalogram (EEG) had already shown there was no activity in her brain, and that wasn't likely to change, even after the anesthesia wore off.

One floor below, Sesshoumaru had already followed Rin to the Intensive Care Unit, and was standing over her as a machine breathed for her. There were strange sensors stuck all over her head, which bore several bandages. He didn't need anyone to explain what he was looking at; it was the shell of the girl named Rin.

He couldn't stand to look at it.

Sesshoumaru turned and had one foot out the door when he heard something behind him.

The EEG lines started to dance as Rin gagged and pulled at the strange plastic device stuck in her throat. It came out easily, and her own lungs expanded and contracted. The smell of the leukemia in her body just seemed to disappear from the room as the taiyoukai stared in awe at the young girl he'd come to love as his daughter. Her fingers moved to her head, and she pulled the EEG sensors off. She felt a little confused; she hadn't been told that the doctors would operate on her brain.

Rin smiled at Sesshoumaru with wide, bright amber eyes. "Sesshoumaru-sama, what's wrong?"

* * *

**Please Review!**

**Next Chapter: **Epilogue

**Special thanks to: **prettystargurl, crazyhorsegirl3, lilChristal, darlingloversx, Misfit band geek, BabyBri57, Mimori Kiryu, Sugar Sprite, Shiori the Lady Kazekage, Queen of the Nymphs, Wudelfin, Oh Please, Inujoey, kurai7enogu, shikonprincess15, dedanaan, lindarjrjt, Elvin BlueEyes, Yideunbyung Kim, come-by-chance, and supersillee06!


	10. Epilogue

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**Affliction**  
_By Miss Kagura  
_Epilogue

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"Rin, are you all right?" Sesshoumaru asked. 

Rin was quiet for a moment, as if trying to sense if anything was wrong. "Rin's head hurts." She said, running her fingers along a bandage. "But other than that, Rin feels good." She frowned and the smell of her blood tainted her breath. "Owie, I bit the inside of my mouth." Her mouth opened just slightly and Sesshoumaru saw her tiny pink tongue snake over a small, perfectly-formed fang. "Rin feels really good, in fact." She lay back down and closed her eyes, smiling as she sighed.

Dr. Yamaguchi entered with a rather devastated look on his face and looked at the 'dead' EEG screen, which was disconnected from Rin. "I am very sorry for your loss, Mr. Inutaisho. We did our best. Unfortunately, it just wasn't good enough. Rin was a very special girl."

"Thank you!"

The old man nearly fell over when Rin chirped her thanks at him. "What? How? I don't understand!"

"Rin got better just like you said!" Rin happily exclaimed. "See?"

The doctor looked down at the arms she held out for him. The bruises, the IV and needle punctures, and rashes caused by the chemotherapy had completely vanished as if they had never been there. "Your eyes…" He said, glancing over his shoulder at Sesshoumaru, who bore the same eye color. None of it made sense, and for the first time, the doctor realized Sesshoumaru and his brother were possibly something other than rather unique albinos.

Rin relaxed and smiled. She felt better than she had in so long. Other than a fading dull ache in her head, nothing felt wrong. She wasn't tired, she didn't feel sad, and the natural cheerfulness that had seemingly abandoned her had returned.

"I need to do some tests immediately!" Dr. Yamaguchi said, hurriedly rushing out of the room.

After she was moved back to her normal room, Rin immediately attacked the toys Sesshoumaru had bought her. She drew pictures, and beat him at Chutes and Ladders three times in a row while they were waiting for test results. When they came to give her an MRI, Sesshoumaru went for a walk with Kagome through the hospitals small garden to burn the time.

"So what happened? Did Rin turn into a hanyou?" Kagome asked, as confused and shocked as he was.

"I am unsure." Sesshoumaru replied. Was the change permanent? If it wasn't, would she become ill again? Was the temporary relief just some teasing of fate? When would death snap its jaws down on Rin again? He didn't want to buy into the false hope of an instant cure for her disease, like so many other parents he had seen come and go.

He blankly stared down at the concrete steps that lead through the garden, all of them markers to commemorate the founders and contributors of the hospital. It was a noble act, to be sure, and the youkai lord wondered how people could stand to live their entire lives in the hell that he and Rin had been in. According to pamphlets he read when bored, the hospital had been standing for ten years and seen thousands of children. It was a monument to broken noses, car accidents, cancer, death, and needles.

Sesshoumaru froze and reached into his pocket for a folded up drawing Rin had made him earlier.

"What's wrong?" Kagome asked as Sesshoumaru knelt down. She gasped at what was right under his feet. In his hand, he held a drawing of Rin's name. The concrete step at his feet bore the same sloppy signature, down to way she drug a line down to make the outline of a flower at the end of her name. At the bottom of the step, this was inscribed:

_Rin Inutaisho – Volunteer Garden Planner_

Sesshoumaru let out a sigh of relief. The only way for that to be there was if Rin was still alive when the hospital was built. That meant a lot of things; she wasn't going to get sick, she wasn't going to die young, and she wasn't going to age like a mortal should.

"Wow." Kagome said. "So if she isn't going to get sick again, I guess there's no reason she should have to hang around here, huh?" She looked around. "Sesshoumaru?"

He was already gone.

* * *

**Two Years Later**

Rin tied a bright orange ribbon around the sloppy ponytail on the left side of her head. The vibrant color seemed even more striking against her silky silver hair. She gave her teeth a thorough flossing and brushing, knowing well that Sesshoumaru would be able to smell if she didn't. Delicate fingers reached for a box on the bathroom counter and took the lid off, revealing a gift from Sesshoumaru. The new yellow-and-orange checkered kimono looked just like the one she had outgrown.

When the green obi was tied, Rin went to her room in the house she and Sesshoumaru shared with Inuyasha and Kagome, who had been married awhile back. After learning about modern schools, Sesshoumaru and Rin made a deal of sorts. During the school year, she lived in Modern Tokyo. He would take extended trips to his own time, and left her in Kagome's care. She didn't mind, and knew that if it wasn't Kagome she was with it would be Jaken. On various weekends, and during the summer, she and Sesshoumaru went to the Feudal Era, where she was free to run barefoot in fields and pick flowers just as she always had done.

Yesterday had been the last day of school, which meant it was time for Rin to return to simplistically happy, wild life she shared with Sesshoumaru and their strange little family. With a big smile, she threw a backpack on the bed and threw some clothes in, along with some crayons and paper and a doll.

The young girl ran downstairs and opened the refrigerator. She stuffed a plastic bag of strawberries in the backpack for Ah-Un, as well as a book for Jaken. He always did know quite a lot about the world, and he wasn't shy about it either.

"Sit!" Kagome yelled from the dining room. "Really Inuyasha, you shouldn't say words like that in front of the baby!"

"Sit!" The baby repeated. Her father slammed into the ground and Inuyasha realized that his daughter apparently inherited the ability to sit him. He already knew that babies speak a lot, even if their vocabulary is on the small side. "Sit! Sit! Sit! Sit!" Shiori squealed, as she clapped and giggled at what happened when she said the word. She grabbed a handful of rice and threw it off the highchair at him. "Sit! Sit! Sit!"

Sesshoumaru entered the dining room with a candy bar. He waved it in Shiori's face and made an offer. "If you say 'Sit' enough times, your uncle will give you this." A string of rapid-fire 'sits' followed. "This Sesshoumaru could watch this amusement _all_ day."

Kagome sighed. "Stop feeding her junk food. You're going to teach her bad eating habits."

Inuyasha finally crawled up from the floor and glared at his brother, but said nothing. Thankfully, Sesshoumaru was going to be gone all summer, which was the only thing that kept him from lunging at him. Bubbly laughter from his daughter completely distracted him from his anti-Sesshoumaru rage as she nibbled at the treat happily.

"I'm ready, Sesshomaru-sama!" Rin said, slinging the backpack over her shoulder eagerly.

The first thing Rin always did when she arrived in the Feudal Era was take a deep breath. The air was so clean, the grass was so soft, and she felt free in an odd way. This time, Jaken and Ah-Un were waiting for them, one considerably less patient than the other two.

"My Lord! You brought that human child back ag--" Jaken started as foot made contact with his backside.

Rin laughed. "Nice contact, Sesshoumaru-sama!"

"Thank you, Rin." Sesshoumaru replied.

He watched her scamper toward the dragon, backpack in hand. No one asked why Rin followed him anymore; it was obvious from her hair and her eyes that her smile was no lie. She was his daughter, and belonged with him. Nothing, not even death itself could change that.

Years went by, and Rin grew up, much to Sesshoumaru's dismay. There were a million moments perfectly preserved in his mind of the little girl that became his daughter. Some of them made him sad, most of them made him happy, but all of them made him proud in a way. Rin grew up to be a very strong, happy woman.

When Rin's husband died rather unexpectedly in an accident, it was Sesshoumaru that helped her raise her children. After they had grown up, and many of them had children of their own, Rin and Sesshoumaru disappeared to the world on the other side of the well.

Even years after that, a young doctor read about the mysterious case of Rin Inutaisho and located the remains of her tumor in a medical storage facility. There, in a glass jar, was a tumor in the shape of a spider. The doctor read his papers and realized that the surgery report said Rin's tumor had been cut apart during removal, which made no sense, since it was clearly intact. He made some sarcastic comment to himself about how it must have magically reformed itself and laughed.

The telephone rang and a careless elbow knocked the container off the table it was resting on.

The jar broke.

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**The End**

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**Please Review!**

Since a lot of my reviewers have asked, I'm sad to say there won't be a sequel to this fic, although I plan on writing another fic of a slightly similar nature in the future involving Sesshoumaru taking care of Rin after she becomes pregnant from rape. The fic will be titled 'Poppies,' and will feature a romance between Rin and Sesshoumaru, as opposed to portraying them as father and daughter.

_**Author's Note:**__ Unfortunately, this is fiction. There is no magical cure for leukemia, which kills thousands of people each year. Treatment regiments with terrible side effects like necrosis, hair loss, nausea, hemorrhage, and brain damage are the only way to extend the lives of those diagnosed with leukemia. Even if a patient survives their first bout, it returns in a majority of patients with resilience to chemotherapy. If this story was truly realistic, Rin probably would have died._

_While I was making this story, I didn't intend to be so affected by it. What I believed about cancer in general proved to be very wrong. In most cases, it really is Hell to survive or die from. I believe that the reason most people don't understand how bad it is has something to do with the fact that they don't want to know. It's terrible. It's depressing. It's sad. I think that attitude really alienates the people who do manage to survive, which seems wrong in a way._

_The only thing I have left to say as I end the final chapter of my story is that I really, truly admire and pity anyone who has had to face cancer or faced it with someone else._

_Thank you for reading._

_-Miss Kagura_


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